The Possibility of Philosophy in Schools:

Jacques Rancière and Community of Philosophical Inquiry

Jessica Jean Davis

Submitted in partial fulfillment of

the requirements for the degree of

Doctor in Philosophy under the Executive Committee

of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

2019

© 2019

Jessica Jean Davis

All rights reserved

ABSTRACT

The Possibility of Philosophy in Schools:

Jacques Rancière and Community of Philosophical Inquiry

Jessica Jean Davis

Responding to growing efforts to bring philosophy into K-12 schools in the U.S.,

this dissertation takes up pedagogical and political concepts used by Jacques Rancière in

order to reflect on the motivating principles and limitations of bringing philosophy to

schools. Rancière critiques schooling as a mechanism by which socio-economic inequality

is justified and argues that academic philosophy, following the rationalist tradition

attributed to Plato, is in fact complicit in this justificatory process. Given his staunch

position, it might seem that it is impossible to implement philosophy in schools using

Rancièrian principles. I argue that there is a practice of philosophy in schools to which

Rancière may be sympathetic on a theoretical level. In order to support my position, the

principle aim of this work is to provide evidence that Rancière’s works reflect specific

critiques and alternative values of both schooling and philosophy that are also represented

in the principled pedagogical practice of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). I begin

to think through the possibility of CPI in new and existing schools, as well the way that the

notion of possibility itself figures into this line of inquiry. My thesis is that CPI is the

philosophical practice most appropriate for schools given the critiques and alternative

values of schooling and philosophy shared by Rancière and CPI, but that Rancière may

help to inform the way the practice is implemented.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER 2: RANCIÈRE ON SCHOOLING 17

CHAPTER 3: RANCIÈRE ON PHILOSOPHY 48

CHAPTER 4: RANCIÈRE AND COMMUNITY OF

PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY 73

CHAPTER 5: THE POSSIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHY IN SCHOOLS 110

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION 146

BIBLIOGRAPHY 154

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Megan Laverty for patiently offering her

feedback throughout countless drafts of this dissertation. I would like to acknowledge the

rest of my committee members Dr. David Kennedy, Dr. Samir Haddad, Dr. Randall

Allsup, and Dr. David Hansen for their helpful feedback on this project. Classmates in my

doctoral program helped strengthen my ideas throughout the first four years of my

participation, particularly my cohort members LeAnn Holland and Nick Fortier.

Attendees at my talks at the North American Association for Community of Inquiry

Conferences in 2016 and 2018 provided me with invaluable perspectives on my argument.

Participants and attendees of the Philosophy of Education Society 2019 panel, “New

Theoretical and Practical Approaches to Community of Philosophical Inquiry,” were also

instrumental. The Summer Seminar held by the Institute for the Advancement of

Philosophy for Children at Montclair State University, which I attended in 2013, changed

my life as a scholar and inspired this dissertation. I am also indebted to the Philosophy

Learning and Teaching Organization and the American Philosophical Association’s

Committee on Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy, for it was in attending their 2011

Mini-Conference on Philosophy for Children that I was first introduced to this movement.

I would like to acknowledge teachers I had before arriving at my doctoral program

as well. I am forever grateful for the philosophical training I received at San Diego State

University. As an undergraduate I had the fortune to be mentored by Dr. Steve Barbone,

whose guidance, humility, skepticism, and humor continue to inform my aspirations. The

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teacher who originally inspired me with a love of learning is Mrs. Lisa Lee, my fifth and

sixth grade teacher at Lindbergh-Schweitzer Elementary School.

My family has supported me in so many ways throughout this journey. Offering

countless hours of babysitting and accepted my absence at various gatherings so that I

could focus on work and school, they held faith in my abilities and belief in my dreams,

even during my struggles. I would not be where I am today without my patient and

inspiring husband Scott Davis, who slowed making progress on his own goals so that I

could pursue mine.

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For my daughter,

Sky Sophia

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PREFACE

There are a number of ways that I find Jacques Rancière to be a fascinating study

for important questions and themes discussed in contemporary academic scholarship

within philosophy of education, but I ascend to this level of scholarship by starting with a

look at my high school experience. Although there may be limitations to substantiating

one’s research based on biographical facts, the messy narrative of my attendance in that

first public high school – the same one from which I ended up graduating after attending

two other schools in the interim, and the same school at which I first began to think

critically about schooling – acts not only as a partial motivation for my project, but

provides a relatable example that I will draw on occasionally throughout the dissertation.

By inquiring into Rancière’s work, I continue to discover avenues for inquiry that pertain

not merely to my own experiences in schools, but also to topics I have become drawn to

since entering college and throughout graduate school.

As a brief disclaimer about this tale of my teenage disappointment with school, I

should say that to this day I am still not entirely sure whether or not I was justified in

feeling disappointment in my school experience. After all, with the dramatic and emotional

changes taking place at home, it may be that I was simply projecting my familial

disappointments onto my educational experience. Maybe I should have become motivated

to study different factors that had impacted my home life rather than ending with a

motivation to make whole new schools based on philosophy. Maybe there is nothing that

my school could have done. I could have done the right thing, continued as a high-

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achieving student, and lived through the rocky time in my life without ever becoming

disgruntled with schooling. But in fact, I blamed many things on the schools I attended,

and this is the tale of how I did that, and how that blame has led to my current study.

In Elementary School I was in Gifted and Talented Education classes starting in

third grade and was in advanced classes in Middle School as well, excitedly doing

homework each day after school, soaking up the subject matter. My parents had divorced

when I was five, so my brother and I spent ten years switching each week between our

parents’ houses. Even though I did not have a perfectly stable life at home, I managed to

consistently do well in school. This all changed in the summer before tenth grade, when

my mother went through her second divorce and I moved in with her permanently. I

became a fifteen-year-old who was skipping classes and drinking liquor with friends after

school.

As a fifteen-year-old going through difficulties at home, I spent hours, including

class time, creating a self-published magazine (or zine), which I titled Wizdumb. In this

zine I published pieces that were critical of school and society. I had been inspired by zines

I had seen at record stores and concert venues I frequented – all part of the Punk Rock

community. I was able to print the first issue thanks to my English teacher who ran copies

for me from the teacher’s lounge. Other issues I was able to print at the local copy stores.

While I did the designing and most of the content, I also accepted submissions from

friends at my school. While some of my pieces were critical of home life and my parents,

the central focus was on the failings of school. Again, one could say that I had misplaced

the blame, and that school was not the problem. Underlying my criticisms of my school,

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however, was the assumption that it could be something different, and that I was capable of

something different; I had the sense that my potential was being thwarted, and that this was

true for many other students. Having loved school for so many years and having felt at

home there – inspired by teachers, excited about my abilities, curious – I now felt uncared

for, as teachers seemed willing for me to fail out of their classes, never expecting more,

never looking into the reasons for such failure. It remains a question for me as to whether I

should have or could have had a stronger will and remained a successful student all those

years, and whether schooling could have helped if my schools were different. The topic of

the will is one that is still relevant to me to today, as is the question of the responsibility of

the school, and these are topics that Rancière directly takes up.

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After dropping out of my original high school at age fifteen, I was able to attend a

charter high school where my mom had quite serendipitously found a temporary position

as a secretary. It was a great two semesters of self-paced classes, where I read many

important socially critical books at my own pace, working one-on-one with teachers.

Although I had already heard of the word anarchism through punk rock bands I was

listening to at the time, an English teacher at this charter school give me a flyer that

detailed more about the theory. This would prove to have an impact on my development

and is now a theory that I find interesting to consider in light of Rancière’s works.

The two semesters I spent at that charter school were very positive but were

followed by a move back to a new public high school when my mom and I moved in with

a new boyfriend of hers on the other side of the city. I continued publishing my zine at this

new school, where I once again felt jaded by schooling. After she and that boyfriend broke

up, my mom and I moved back to our original neighborhood, I moved back into my

original high school, and on the urgent printing of the fifth issue of my magazine, I

graduated high school. To explain this urgent printing: because I received an F in my first-

period Ceramics class my senior year, due to tardiness, a special deal had to be worked out

between my Ceramics teacher and my counselor. The F was impacting my GPA such that I

would not be able to graduate high school if I did not receive a passing grade in that first

period class. My Ceramics teacher allowed me to create any work of art to supplement the

ceramics instruction I had missed. I thus submitted a small zine on the topic of art and was

given the passing grade I needed in order to graduate.

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As should come as no surprise, college was not on my radar at the time I received

my diploma. I did not plan to go to college, but evidenced by a number of drawings I had

created, I wanted to one day open a very different kind of high school. I pictured an

entirely self-sufficient school where students could run their own shops (bookstores, record

stores, coffee shops, etc.), grow their own food, collect solar energy, construct the

buildings, and self-govern. The goal of this dream-campus would not be for students to

graduate and move on, but instead to thrive while at school. If students raised questions

about the purpose of what we were reading in a class, the question would not be brushed

aside as disruptive of the end-goals, but seen as the start of a conversation worth having.

While this continues to motivate me today, I am still not sure that I was correct in placing

so much expectation on my schools to help me in life, nor am I sure that making schools

more capable of offering this help is a valid hope to hold on to today. Indeed, many of the

critiques of high school that I had as an anarcho-curious teenager and that I still hold today

are critiques of the system of schooling in relation to the larger socio-economic context.

There is an extent to which making better schools will not fix the larger problems that are

related to, but perhaps ultimately outside of, schooling. This challenge of wanting to

improve schools while also believing that they are part of a broken system continues for

me to this day and is a running theme in Rancière’s work – a theme he addresses in part by

way of his notion of the police order.

Would a better school, such as those for which I drew blueprints in my high school

journals, have helped me through those difficult times? Are schools meant to help in that

way? If not, what are they good for? Are schools just about allowing those with the will

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and the support to succeed, while further disenfranchising or keeping stagnant those

without will? Is the student’s environment outside the school the most important factor in

their success? Is there some societal value that emerges from schooling that does not

necessarily feel beneficial to every individual? Should I interpret my failings in school as

valuable nonetheless? If we were to look at this same scenario but I was a person of color,

LGBTQ, or otherwise had cards stacked against me in terms of privilege in our society,

would we answer these questions in the same way?

If I were to stop the narrative at the high school level, I would have a good

justification for studying someone like Rancière, who grapples with the question of how a

state institution such as a school does or does not contribute to genuine possibilities for

students, and who grapples with the question of the role of the will in relation to realization

of possibilities or one’s potential. As I previously suggested, however, the reasons for

studying Rancière are not derivable from my high school experiences alone.

To summarize the next expanse of time after barely graduating high school, I did

not swiftly enter into college. Given my political commitments to grassroots living, I was

skeptical about the need for a degree. I joined an anarchist collective, hitch-hiked to anti-

war marches, continued publishing zines, and was not invested in going through traditional

channels in order to make changes in the world – a general orientation that is also

supported by Rancière’s arguments regarding politics. My critique of wisdom, a la

Wizdumb, was heartfelt and lived. One could also analyze this phase of my life and

propose that my lifestyle choices were a response to a rootless home life growing up. My

commitment was to a life of integrity according to what I felt was right, and this meant that

xii

I rejected a lot of the traditional models for success and normalcy: I didn’t shave my legs,

rarely bought new clothes, biked instead of owning a car, and so on. Suffice it to say that

deciding to enroll in two philosophy courses at Concordia University in Montreal, after

hitchhiking throughout the U.S., France, England, the Netherlands, and Canada, took some

evolution on my part.

This evolution involved a discipline of the will, in that I no longer told myself that I

was incapable of flourishing in any sanctioned activity, academics being one of them. I had

decided at the time that I wanted to be happy, that I wanted to help as many people as I

could, and that I was not going to blame others for my failure to live up to my full

potential. I decided to make certain compromises in my beliefs so that I could accomplish

more important things like being satisfied with myself, being autonomous, and being able

to help people. This was how I rationalized going to university, and how I would

eventually adopt other lifestyle choices that seem to go along with being successful in

academia: looking presentable, attending classes, complying with institutional policies, and

renting rather than couch-surfing. Recognizing that I was responsible for my own life and

that others also had to worry about their own, I developed a different kind of appreciation

for people – transforming my attitude toward teachers into one in which I saw them as

people living out their lives, rather than people who owed me something or were to blame

for the problematic system(s) of which they were a part. In sum, I recognized that

compromise was inevitable, and that I could still perhaps do well even within systems I felt

were fraught with problems. I share this sentiment with Rancière who, though asserting the

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inevitability of certain issues within any social institution or gathering, maintains a

semblance of hope and keeps an appreciation for individuals at the core of his work.

With this ambition to take charge of my life and to recognize where each person

was in their own journey, I found myself on a farm in British Columbia. There, I was

living while working as a cherry-picker over the summer, among college students from

Quebec who were indulging in a carefree experience before returning to school. I was

simply a “ragamuffin vagabond,” as my mom affectionately called me, traveling with no

immediate plans. It was on that farm that, in speaking with Quebecois college students, I

was told that I should read Plato, and that I would like him. That summer of cherry

picking, talking with kindred spirits and reflecting on my life, set the stage for my decision

to try to set down some roots in Montreal.

I had tried taking a few classes at a community college at the advice of my dad and

stepmom a couple of years prior to that, one of which was Asian Philosophy. I had

enrolled because I had an interest in Taoism; I had no idea what philosophy was. I had

dropped out of those classes, so attending Concordia University in Montreal was the first

time I was taking college seriously. In that first semester at Concordia, enrolled in two

Philosophy courses due to the suggestion (by that friend on the cherry orchard) that I

would like philosophy, I discovered that the magazine Wizdumb I had started in high

school, being a critique of knowledge(s) in schools, family, and culture, was nascent

philosophy. As a teen I had been disappointed by the norms I was compared against, the

expectations I could not (or did not feel I could) live up to, and the contradictions I saw

around me. I had questions that were left unanswered in classes. I felt lost regarding my

xiv

purpose, my value, my abilities. Upon learning that philosophy meant love of wisdom (I

learned this in the course on Pre-Socratic Philosophy), it did not take long for me to make

the connection that it was perhaps philosophy that had been missing in my high schools. In

my understanding of this ancient practice, loving wisdom involves, among other things,

contemplating the notion of wisdom and recognizing the wisdom you possess. As a teen, I

was hung up on external standards of intelligence, success, and wisdom. I had lost the

appreciation for wisdom that can be found within, wisdom that can legitimately be

examined and explored rather than taken for granted as something external to oneself.

A big part of what disappointed me in high school was the way in which the

educative system, which I did not enter voluntarily, seemed to be unquestioned. Although I

was disgruntled as a teen, I had to decide to either do what it took to pass the classes or

fail. The standards by which I was compared were determined before I arrived at the

school. I did not have the option of questioning the purpose of school, or the space to

engage with ideas about what my own purpose might be. There did not seem to be

possibility for engaging in school in a way in which I could contribute to changing it so

that it was more suitable for a person such as myself, who was having a hard time in life.

That lack of a space to be critically engaged and to be appreciated for my perspective is

what I have since designated as a lack of being able to question, and ultimately an absence

of philosophy. If there were a place in my public schools where questioning, examination

of possibilities, and thinking for its own sake could have been nurtured, I think I would

have felt more comfortable enduring uncertainty.

xv

Granting that we are required by law to be in school, one would think that school is

supposed to have positive consequences, for surely a required four years in which harms

are inflicted would seem more like a punishment. I spent four years going to different high

schools, not by my own choice. When I turned eighteen I was legally responsible for my

choices, but I do not feel that I had the proper support leading up to that point to be able to

make informed choices. If school somehow damages students or makes their lives harder

(by making them feel bad about themselves, by making employment more difficult, etc.)

then perhaps the state ought to be held accountable for arguably inflicting such harms.

Again, there are limitations to what a school ought to be expected to achieve, but these are

some of the sentiments I struggled with as a teen and which I still ponder today.

Given my experiences in high school and my later exposure to philosophy, shortly

after declaring myself a Philosophy major I became driven to create a philosophy-based

high school. In my master’s thesis on the topic I argued in part that a philosophy-based

high school – wherein reason and reasons could be explored, and where the purpose of

schooling could itself be problematized – would be a more hospitable place for the

students otherwise ill-served by the school’s structure.1 While in college I have

encountered arguments as to why reason and a search for objectivity may be problematic

and may reinforce or justify systems of domination. Just before completing my thesis I

discovered the sub-discipline of K-12 philosophers who have been working for decades to

1. Jessica Davis. “The Ideal School: Justifications and Parameters for the Creation

of Philosophy-Based High Schools.” Master’s Thesis. Montezuma Publishing: San Diego.

2012.

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help implement what I lacked in high school, and I have learned through this movement of

some principles that also challenge my glorification of reason.

When initially exposed to the Philosophy in Schools movement, I did not grasp all

the varying approaches to bringing philosophy to schools, so I assumed that advocates

were all about letting high school students read the same philosophical texts I was reading

as an undergraduate. I came to find that there are different approaches, some of which

hinge on divergent values rather than merely practical considerations. In learning about

and studying philosophy for children and community of philosophical inquiry specifically,

I have come to further question appeals to knowledge in the classroom, and indeed have

come to see that the different methods of philosophizing in K-12 settings are based as

much on principled values around schooling and philosophy as they are on practical

considerations. Indeed, I have come to believe that community of philosophical inquiry

best supports the vision I have in mind when I imagine how philosophy might help

students in the way I wish I had been helped as a teen.

There are a few things at work here and elucidating them will help to clarify why

Rancière is so relevant to me. First, in my drive to open a philosophy-based high school

there is an assumption that there is a certain kind of discourse – philosophy – that is not

taking place in schools now. This requires a definition of philosophy and proof that it is

distinct from other discourses, pedagogies, and academic subjects in schools. It also

requires that the philosophy I propose can in fact happen at a school, and that it is not just a

name for something fundamentally at odds with schooling. Secondly, there is an

xvii

assumption that this could somehow serve more students or be better for everyone – that if

it can happen in schools, it should.

To summarize, my trajectory since high school has been to remedy the deficiencies

of that institution by insisting on a place for a love of wisdom within the space of school. Is

this questioning process the same as reason, and does it necessarily have results that are

good for people? Does philosophy offer us a special way in which we can critique

injustices in schools, or give us tools to think through these issues? Can philosophy help us

flourish? Can schools? As will be made clear in my description of his critiques and values

of both schooling and philosophy, Rancière is a philosopher who can help to answer these

questions, who can help one look further into what is at stake in a teenage student’s

disavowal of wisdom.

1

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Responding to growing efforts to bring philosophy into K-12 schools in the U.S.,

this dissertation takes up pedagogical and political concepts found in the works of Jacques

Rancière in order to reflect on the relationship between traditional U.S. schooling and the

values that may be inherent in the practice of philosophy.2 Rancière critiques schooling as

a mechanism that reinforces and promotes socio-economic inequality. He also argues that

academic philosophy – following the rationalist tradition attributed to Plato – is complicit

in this justificatory process. Although Rancière admonishes reification of methods, this

dissertation contends that community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) is a type of method

that Rancière might consider valuable in contributing to better schools.3

2. Though my research could have involved philosophy in schools worldwide, I

have focused specifically on the U.S. because I attend public school in the U.S. from grade

kindergarten until I graduated high school, and thus understand some of the problems on a

more personal level than if I were to assess problems found in public schools in other

countries. As a further point, some countries see more success in bringing philosophy to

public schools, so I gather that there is a special need to find out why it is so challenging to

introduce philosophy to U.S. public schools.

3. While community of inquiry was first referred to in the writings of Charles

Pierce, I take up the community of philosophical inquiry methodology as proposed by

Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. Further discussion of this method and its

principles follow, yet it is important to note here that for the remainder of this dissertation I

refer to the community of philosophical inquiry coming out of the Lipman and Sharp

literature, specifically in the context of U.S. K-12 schools unless otherwise stated. I should

also note that I am using the term ‘method’ here loosely.

2

The underlying theme of this study should be of interest to scholars of Rancière,

advocates of philosophy in schools, and others: it insists that everyone is fundamentally

equal in their capacity to flourish, and considers how, through schooling, we might do a

better job of acknowledging this equality in our society.4 This study takes as a starting

point that schools are places wherein one can allegedly acquire the skills and social

validation necessary to accomplish one’s aims. Specifically, U.S. K-12 education is framed

as preparation for students to enter the work force or pursue further education before doing

so, and in general, to find a place to survive within society. Because it appears that socio-

economic factors preclude all students from using their schooling to choose and show how

they want to fit in to society, and since it is in the best interest of society to continually

improve upon designated roles within society, my motivation for this dissertation is to

critique any pretense that schools are objective arbiters of wisdom, credibility, or equality.

Rather than assuming that students need to acquire certain skills that (“intelligent”) adults

have, the Rancièrean assumption of equality of intelligence circumvents the requirement of

transmitting or eliciting intelligence – the required bodies of knowledge for, among other

4. Even though Rancière does not make use of the term, I find it useful in light of

my motivations to help students (I struggled in high school and am inspired in my

scholarly work to contribute to better high school experiences for students). I use the term

“flourish” without subscribing to a detailed conception of the term. I try to use it as a kind

of placeholder. I have in mind that at minimum, flourishing describes the state of being

wherein a person’s basic needs are met and they can live in a way such that they set goals

and achieve them without impeding the flourishing of others. Whether one characterizes

this flourishing as happiness or as the realization of one’s ‘potential,’ or as something else

entirely, there are difficulties when it comes to assessment. In general, I have in mind that

flourishing just means that a person has a life that they are grateful for; an element of self-

reflection or meta-cognition, indeed, seems necessary in order for us to be living and

grateful to be living.

3

applications, certain job prospects – and instead compels one to consider the ways in which

society might arrange itself in order to recognize and nurture the intrinsic intelligence, or

equality, of its members. What might the purpose of schooling be if this equality of

intelligence is inherent?

Rancière is very skeptical about the possibility of radical change from within

institutions, so it may seem that the attempt to disrupt inequality from within schools is

inherently futile. A further issue is that for Rancière, if we insist that our aim is for schools

to better contribute to student flourishing, self-efficacy, autonomy, or any such descriptors,

there are difficulties due to the implied ability to measure them based on a universal

metric. Rancière is not a utopian or teleological thinker. As such, my approach

foregrounding this dissertation is to defend the idea that CPI can make U.S. K-12 schools

better, yet to take seriously Rancière’s skepticism regarding this possibility and indeed,

regarding the term better itself.

My approach in bringing Rancière and CPI together is not to argue that the

commonalities I draw out are comprehensive, representing all the themes and nuance

found in each of the respective sets of literature. I also am not insisting that Rancière can

only be interpreted and applied in this way, nor that CPI practitioners all endorse each of

these values. What I do is pick out pieces of evidence and explore implications of different

facets of both Rancière and CPI in order to share with the reader why it is that I believe

they are so similar. I suggest that Rancière and CPI have in common certain critiques of

schooling, namely inequality, stultification, truth, explanation, progress, and the police

order. I assert that there are alternatives values pertaining to schooling that Rancière and

4

CPI share: the assumption of equality of intelligence, a belief in the separation between

language and truth, and the value of dissensus. The positive conception of philosophy that

I argue is supported by both Rancière and CPI entails the values of egalitarianism,

assertion, and creativity or sitelessness. These values are meant to serve as alternatives to

the problematic elements of elitism, method, and truth I show to be found in traditional

philosophy. My thesis is that adopting a positive Rancièrean conception of philosophy may

help U.S. K-12 CPI practitioners be more congnizant of the danger of replicating the same

ills, or critiques of schooling and philosophy, that they are trying to combat when they face

administrative, economic, and curricular challenges in their efforts to introduce and expand

the practice in schools.

Project Significance

While there is a breadth of literature that takes up Rancière’s educationally relevant

concepts as well as his criticisms of philosophy, there are only a few brief references to

Rancière’s positive notions of philosophy.5 Because Rancière’s treatment of philosophy

cannot be isolated from his commentary on social order and the function of schools,

5. Since 2003, Rancière has been mentioned forty five times in Studies in

Philosophy and Education, with seventeen articles that focus mainly on him. He has been

referenced in Educational Theory fifteen times, with nine of those articles featuring his

work prominently, and articles focusing solely on him printed in 2010, 2012, and 2015. He

has come up in twelve works in the Journal of Philosophy of Education since 2007, three

of which focused primarily on him in 2009. In the 2013 issue of Philosophy of Education

he was referenced twice, with one of the articles focusing heavily on him. In 2010

Educational Philosophy & Theory created a special issue about his work, which was made

into a 2011 book, Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy.

5

focusing on this treatment offers a new lens through which to view CPI as a philosophical

practice within schools – particularly when the practice is pitched as a remedy for various

social ills including the aforementioned socio-economic inequality. There are a number of

philosophers of education who have used Rancièrean notions in order to conceive of or

theorize certain applications of such notions, so I am not alone in this endeavor. What is

unique in my approach is that I am considering Rancière in light of contemporary efforts to

bring philosophy into schools via CPI. I offer an interpretation of Rancière’s positive

notion of philosophy and consider it in light of principles associated with CPI.

This project is thus significant in a few different ways. This dissertation routes the

terrain of the work done on Rancière within philosophy of education and charts the ways in

which Rancière may be an unknowing ally to those who advocate for the use of CPI in

U.S. K-12 schools. By looking closely at Rancière’s negative and positive notions of

philosophy, as well as the ways in which CPI literature describes philosophy, it may help

to challenge and reinvigorate both the discipline of philosophy and the practice of CPI. In

bringing Rancière and CPI into conversation, the following two positions are challenged:

that schools can never be emancipatory, and that bringing philosophy into schools will

make them better. An important question informing my project can thus be put in this way:

How might the articulation of a positive Rancièrean conception of philosophy help in

understanding what is at stake in practicing CPI in U.S. K-12 schools? Having

contextualized this project, I will now offer more context regarding Rancière.

6

Context: Rancière’s Training, Influences, and Overarching Concepts

Born in Algiers in 1940, Rancière received his formal training in philosophy at the

École Normale Supérieure. Specializing in political philosophy and aesthetics, Rancière’s

broad interests are equality and class struggle. Heavily influenced by his reading of Marx,

Rancière worked as a doctoral student under the French Marxist philosopher Louis

Althusser. He contributed to Althussers 1965 Reading Capital with other students of

Althusser’s and was involved as an activist in the May 1968 protests.6 Rancière helped

found the journal Revoltes Logiques in 1975. In the 1980’s, Rancière published his critique

of Bourdieu’s The Inheritors, Reproduction, and Distinction when France welcomed a

Socialist government that relied heavily on Bourdieu in its efforts to reduce inequality in

education.7 He is currently a professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School and

professor emeritus at the Université de Paris, VIII. He is best known for his works, The

Philosopher and His Poor, The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual

Emancipation, The Nights of Labor: The Workers’ Dream in Nineteenth-Century France,

The Emancipated Spectator, and Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy.8

6. Oliver Davis, Jacques Rancière, vii.

7. Andrew Parker, “Editors Introduction: Mimesis and the Social Division of

Labor,” in Jacques Rancière, The Philosopher and His Poor. Edited by Andrew Parker.

Translated by John Drury, Corinne Oster, and Andrew Parker (Durham: Duke University

Press, 1983), xvi.

8. Although his formal training is in philosophy, Rancière’s work and the

secondary literature he inspires extends beyond its scope. He has given so many interviews

within and outside of academia that in 2009 a 600-page collection of his interviews in

French was published – under the title that translates as And Too Bad For the Weary.

Davis, Jacques Rancière, viii.

7

Rancière found shortcomings on the part of his mentor Althusser, taking issue with

his notion that philosophy, and its alleged mastery of scientific reasoning methods, ought

to intervene in order to help proletarians overcome their oppression.9 Frustration with this

view motivated Rancière’s early archival work wherein his intention was to disprove the

suggestion that proletarians cannot reason alone and are in need of philosophers to help

with this task.10 Philosophizing about working class struggles does not do any good if in

doing so it situates the philosopher as having more power than the working class.

Rancière’s falling away from Althusser launched his series of critiques – particularly

prominent in his book, The Philosopher and His Poor – against various philosophical

schools and thinkers.

Since his intellectual break from Althusser, Rancière strived to diminish the alleged

importance of philosophers’ theories, dating as far back as Plato, and to reassert the

importance of the human subject.11 Peter Hallward writes, “Rancière prescribes the

primacy and equality of subjective experience as the unconditional point of departure for

philosophy.”12 Though adopting this focus is somewhat common among the generation of

French philosophers to which he belongs, and he has cited Foucault as being his biggest

9. Sudeep Dasgupta. “The Spiral of Thought in the Work of Jacques Rancière.”

Theory & Event 16, no. 1 (2013); Davis, Jacques Rancière, 7, 15.

10. Deranty, Key Concepts, 17.

11. Nick Hewlett. Badiou, Balibar, Rancière (London, GB: Continuum, 2007), 86;

Joseph Tanke, Jacques Rancière: An Introduction (New York: Continuum, 2011), 13-15.

12. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 38-39

8

influencer, Rancière has articulated that he is specifically motivated to show just how he

departs from French contemporaries in structuralism and post-structuralism.13 Among the

differences between Rancière and his poststructuralist contemporaries, Hallward notes, is

the fact that Rancière refuses to “absolutize the subject,” whereby one makes subjectivity

the ground of everything else.14 The equality of subjectivity that Hallward highlights does

not have an ontological status nor essential, material characteristics for Rancière, because it

is based on an assumption. As such, rather than subjectivity being foundational for

Rancière, it figures into what I would deem an ethical orientation, wherein one assumes

equality across the board.

A central distinction informing Rancière’s works is between what he calls the

police (or the police order), and politics.15 The police, also referred to as the

partition/distribution of the sensible, can be seen as the sanctioning of roles and relations in

society, wherein everything has a place – the absence of void.16 The sensible is just that

which is deemed as visible, recognizable, hearable, and having a place.17 Rancière writes:

13. Gabriel Rockhill and Philip Watts, Introduction, Rockhill, Gabriel and Philip

Watts, Editors. Jacques Rancière: History, Politics, Aesthetics (Durham: Duke University

Press, 2009), 2; Rancière, “Against an Ebbing Tide,” 246.

14. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 39.

15. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta, Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth,

Emancipation. (New York: Continuum, 2010), 33-38.

16. Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Edited and translated

by Steven Corcoran (New York: Bloomsbury, 2010), 36.

17. Jacques Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus.” In Reading Rancière, 1-17.

Edited by Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp (New York: Continuum, 2011), 6-7. Daniela

Mercieca and Duncan P. Mercieca. “‘How Early Is Early?’ Or ‘How Late Is Late?’:

9

The police is thus first an order of bodies that defines the allocation of ways of

doing, ways of being, and ways of saying, and sees that those bodies are assigned

by name to a particular place and task; it is an order of the visible and the sayable

that sees that a particular activity is visible and another is not, that this speech is

understood as discourse and another as noise. 18

Rancière’s works that focus on politics exclusively address the reasons why, contrary to

there ever being ‘democratic institutions,’ all institutions are part of this police order, since

they stipulate the names and places for those functioning within the institution(s).19

Institutions are characterized by protocols, policies, organizational roles, strategic visions,

and so on. Schools are a primary example of these problematic yet inevitable social

institutions.20

Rancière holds that schools attempt (not necessarily intentionally) to justify the

police order by explaining that we deserve to be in the places we find ourselves because we

have merited our roles through demonstration of our intelligence (or lack thereof) in

Thinking Through Some Issues In Early Intervention.” Educational Philosophy & Theory

46, no. 8 (2014): 852; Tyson Edward Lewis, The Aesthetics of Education: Theatre,

Curiosity, and Politics in the Work of Jacques Rancière and Paulo Freire (New York:

Bloomsbury, 2012), 51; Claudia W. Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics, and the Pedagogical

Relation.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30, no. 2 (2011): 216.

18. Jacques Ranciere, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Translated by Julie

Rose (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 29.

19. Claudia W. Ruitenberg, “Queer Politics in Schools: A Rancierean reading.” In

Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy, 105-120. Edited by Maarten

Simons and Jan Masschelein (Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 110; Lewis, “Realm

of the Senses,” 288-289.

20. Tyson Edward Lewis, “Paulo Freire's Last Laugh: Rethinking Critical

Pedagogy's Funny Bone Through Jacques Rancière.” In Rancière, Public Education, and

the Taming of Democracy, 121-133. Edited by Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein

(Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 110; Mercieca and Mercieca, “How Early,” 853.

10

schools. The existence of schools thus contributes to what Rancière calls the

pedagogization of society, wherein social sorting and ranking is determined and explained

by merit that is allegedly assessed within schools, and measured by a measurer.21 When

this sorting by capacity fails, and Rancière insists that it always does, we attempt to make

schools more ‘inclusive’ because education is taken to be the primary mechanism by which

we can fit people into their proper places, or into the distribution of the sensible/police

order.22 This ‘proper placement,’ where everything is in its right place, is a societal

harmony in which there are no outliers. This is a vision of a just society, like that described

in Plato’s Republic, which Rancière readily critiques. Ultimately, Rancière challenges the

aim, which some philosophers of education might have, of schools contributing to a more

harmonious society – not because there is fault in the desire for harmony, but because it is

a futile goal.23

21. Sarah Galloway, “Reconsidering Emancipatory Education: Staging a

Conversation Between Paulo Freire and Jacques Rancière.” Educational Theory 62 (2012):

163; Tyson Lewis, “Jacques Rancière’s Aesthetic Regime and Democratic Education,” The

Journal of Aesthetic Education 47, no. 2 (2013): 61-62; Pelletier, “Emancipation,” 144;

Mercieca, “Initiating,” 410.

22. Caroline Pelletier, “Beating The Barrel of Inclusion: Cosmopolitanism Through

Rabelais and Rancière, A Response To John Adlam And Chris Scanlon,” Psychodynamic

Practice 17, no. 3 (2011): 268.

23. While the school indeed is part of what Rancière calls the ‘archipolitical

apparatus’ insofar as it explains why society is organized in the way that it is, it should be

noted that for Rancière we can distinguish between schooling on the one hand, and

education/learning on the other; Rancière does have language for education and learning as

being positive. This more positive approach is covered in the second section of the

following chapter.

11

Political moments occur when there is a redistribution or reconfiguration of socially

accepted time and space.24 According to Rancière, we ought not to feel defined by the

police order and the idea that there are right and wrong ways for social space to be

navigated (i.e. correct attribution of values, correct names and interpretations, accurate

measures, etc.). He argues that everyone is equally separated by distance (we are all, as

speaking beings, ‘other than ourselves’), and that the quality of this distance is not

predetermined.25 This should not be misinterpreted as meaning, however, that knowledge

is relativistic. It is rather, as Caroline Pelletier puts it, a “defense of the possibility of

politics.”26 Rancière’s works have indeed inspired and enriched reflection on possibility

within education – on what it might mean to open up a space that has no predetermined

ends, that has no set means of assessment.27

Each person represents possibility for Rancière because when two or more people

are in communication, the issue of the social arises: there will be something left out in

communication, there will be disagreement, because there is no way for everything to be

24. Tanke, Rancière, 14-15.

25. Lewis, “Aesthetic Regime,” 60; Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 220-221; Caroline

Pelletier, “Rancière and the Poetics of the Social Sciences,” International Journal of

Research & Method in Education, 32, no. 3 (2009): 275.

26. Pelletier, “Poetics,” 268.

27. Mercieca and Mercieca, “How Early,” 416; Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 211;

Walter O. Kohan, “Childhood, Education and Philosophy: Notes on Deterritorialisation.”

Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45 (2011): 354-355; Caroline Pelletier, “No Time or

Place for Universal Teaching: The Ignorant Schoolmaster and Contemporary Work on

Pedagogy,” in Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical

Equality ed. Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison Ross (New York: Continuum, 2012), 108.

12

explained, demonstrated, or understood. It would seem that possibility is an important

element for CPI and Rancière, regardless of where CPI is implemented. So where does

possibility fit into the overall trajectory of this project? I draw attention to this thread

within both bodies of literature as a way to frame the response to the overall question of

this dissertation, regarding whether philosophy is possible in schools. Indeed, it seems that

this positive notion of philosophy for Rancière is quite analogous to the notion assumed in

CPI.

It is likely that if one is familiar with and sympathetic to Rancière’s works, so

heavy with critiques of philosophy, one is also weary of explanations themselves and is not

jumping at the chance to pigeon-hole ideas nor rigidify practices. Nonetheless, within

Ranciere’s works and interviews there are glimmers of demanding and radical accounts of

Rancière’s ideal philosophy. There are a small number of places where Rancière offers

positive descriptions of philosophy, and yet a smaller number of places in the secondary

literature where these positive descriptions are investigated. These positive instances of

what philosophy is or can be are, in my view, worthy of consideration in light of the

movement to bring philosophy into K-12 U.S. schools.

Given that much work has been done to show how we can bring other concepts of

his into schools, formulating a Rancièrean notion of philosophy may be particularly

interesting and useful for those who are part of the movement to bring philosophy itself

into schools. On the face of it, this is not an easy project, however. Rancière writes:

My practice of philosophy goes along with my idea of politics. It is anarchical, in

the sense that it traces back the specificity of disciplines and discursive

13

competences to the ‘egalitarian’ level of linguistic competence and poetic

invention. This practice implies that I take philosophy as a specific battlefield.28

Rancière depicts this as a battlefield because philosophy entails a continuous project of

staking claims, building arguments only for them to be taken apart, parsing ideas up into

concepts only to be disputed, and so on. This practice need not be viewed as properly

implemented only by those with special training, those who have ‘superior’ knowledge to

those with ‘inferior’ knowledge. As speakers, as participants in shared language, as

communicating beings with the capacity to express unique perspectives, every person can

participate in philosophy.29

The suggestion that philosophy is a battlefield may strike some as quite challenging

and is certainly provocative, particularly when applying this notion to the practice of

philosophy in schools. A school, and much less a classroom, is not typically thought of as a

battlefield. What I take to be meaningful about this provocation is that it helps to

illuminate features relevant to conversations about bringing philosophy into schools: what

is philosophy? What is a school and what should it be? Further, what is at stake in the ways

in which we define philosophy in schools? For example, there is a lot of debate about what

28. Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus.” 14-15.

29. It should be noted that the communication argument here has been criticized. It

has been suggested that Rancière’s argument regarding the equality of capacity is

predicated on verification of actual capacity, thus allegedly making vocalization and use of

language conditions of verification that exclude those who cannot vocalize, and can

valorize colonial power, depending on which language is expected to be used. See

Christopher Watkin, “Thinking Equality Today: Badiou, Rancière, Nancy,” French

Studies: A Quarterly Review 67.4 (2013). Awad Ibrahim, “Criticality Without Guarantees:

Reading Critical Pedagogy Strongly Through Freire and Rancière” Philosophy of

Education (2013): 195.

14

constitutes critical thinking – whether such a thing exists, or whether it is just pretension.

Much of the debate about whether philosophy is something unique is predicated on

conceptions of better kinds of thinking, debates about the purpose of reason, etc. To think

of philosophy as a battlefield means that there is something at stake in this debate, that

there are competing sides that can bring their grievances to bear on philosophies fertile

soil. Rancière’s positive depictions of philosophy align with much of those taken up in CPI

literature, and it is my hope that this project can show this in order to shed light on both the

radical nature of CPI and inform its implementation.

Chapter Outline

In Chapter Two I introduce the reader to Rancière’s conceptual framework with

regards to schooling, specifically his critiques and alternative values. I rely on secondary

literature throughout the chapter, citing the many authors who have also drawn out various

concepts within Rancière’s works. I highlight key concepts that I have drawn out of his

works and that are featured throughout the dissertation: Rancière’s critiques of inequality,

stultification, truth, explanation, progress, and the police order, and his alternatives to

these, which are the assumption of equality of intelligence, a belief in the separation

between language and truth, and the value of dissensus.

In Chapter Three I introduce the reader to the conceptual framework of Rancière

with respect to his attitude toward philosophy – his critiques as well as what I consider his

positive thread of philosophy. I summarize the way Rancière and philosophy is normally

discussed in the secondary literature, and show that the positive thread can be teased out so

15

that it can be applied. In the spirit of Chapter Two, this chapter draws out concepts. In the

section outlining his critique of philosophy I include his critiques of elitism, method, and

truth. In the section on this positive conception of philosophy I describe the norms that I

argue he offers as a response: egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity or sitelessness. I

show that dissensus, insofar as it entails these other components, can be a term used to

refer generally to his positive conception of philosophy.

Chapter Four brings together the two previous chapters by arguing that there is

conceptual overlap between Rancière and CPI. I begin by describing the practice of CPI,

then address some of its founding assumptions, first pertaining to schooling and then to

philosophy. The practice of CPI takes issue with traditional schooling to the extent that the

latter maintains inequality through stultification, assumes objective truth that requires

explanation, and is wed to progress and the police order. CPI objects to traditional

philosophy to the extent that the latter is elitist, assumes a method that alienates lived

experiences, and is predicated on a notion of objective Truth accessible through reason. I

argue that, just as with Rancière’s norms, CPI entails alternatives to the above problems in

the following ways: it assumes equality of intelligence, believes in the separation between

language and truth, and values egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity.

In Chapter Five I consider the question of the possibility of philosophy in schools. I

argue that when merely bringing the practice to traditional schools, we are required to

replicate some of the very practices we want to avoid. However, I show that there are

issues with using CPI to create schools based wholly on philosophy as well. I hope to show

that despite these drawbacks, there are still good reasons to try both approaches. Ultimately

16

I argue that there are more than just practical considerations when contemplating whether

it is possible to authentically implement the values behind CPI: I look at the way in which

the notion of possibility underlies both approaches to CPI in/as schools, and the way that

Rancière responds to this notion.

The concluding chapter of the dissertation, Chapter Six, starts by offering a short

story to refresh the reader as to the significance of this project. I offer a reflection on the

process of writing this dissertation, followed by a suggestion of some potential next steps

in this research. Finally, I end with a general overview of my findings – some final words

of wizdumb.30

30. Wizdumb here refers to the zine discussed in the preface of this dissertation.

17

CHAPTER TWO

RANCIÈRE ON SCHOOLING

This chapter introduces Jacques Rancière's critique and alternative vision of

schooling. Rancière himself avoids offering definitions, so I am taking some liberties by

venturing down this road.31 In the first section, “Rancière’s Critique of Schooling,” I

characterize the view by outlining his treatment of inequality, stultification, truth,

explanation, progress, and the police order. In the second section, “Rancière’s Alternative

Approach to Schooling,” I address his arguments for the assumption of equality of

intelligence, the separation between language and truth, and the value of dissensus.

Ultimately, this chapter problematizes schooling by critiquing its aims and assumptions.

Rancière’s Critique of Schooling

There are many overlaps and few clear distinctions between the terms and lines of

argumentation that comprise Rancière’s critique, so finding a perfect way in which to

present them is a challenge. Roughly, my intention in this section is to share the critiques

in such a way that I strengthen the force of the section that follows, “Rancière’s Positive

Conception of Schooling,” wherein I share what I have gleaned as his alternative to these

problems inherent to schooling. As such, to disclose Rancière’s problematization of

schooling, I first cover his critiques of inequality and stultification, which are in contrast to

31. Oliver Davis, Preface in Jacques Ranciere, ed. Oliver Davis (Cambridge: Polity

Press, 2010), vii-xii.

18

his norm of equality of intelligence. Secondly, I outline his critique of explanation and

truth, which contrast with his belief in the separation between language and truth. Lastly, I

offer his critique of progress, which contrasts with the value of dissensus. It will be

obvious that there is overlap between these concepts (for example, the notion of progress

entails a conception of truth and requires explanation). Again, the reason for separating

these terms is to help allow for the connections between principles informing both

Rancière and CPI to be more apparent. In order to foreground each of his critiques, let me

take a moment to illustrate the traditional view of schooling Rancière has in mind when he

wages these critiques.

Context: Traditional Schooling

To put it simply, Rancière views schooling as a compulsory educational system,

wherein the compulsory structure itself betrays a host of commitments (economic,

political, etc.) and assumptions (regarding the purpose of education, etc.) that dictate and

frame the school itself. As such, Rancière’s whole attitude toward schooling must be

understood in terms of his attitude toward social institutions in general—in other words his

conception of the police order, which I described in the previous chapter. Rancière is

critical of all social institutions and writes primarily on politics and aesthetics – politics

because he scorns attempts to create social harmony through inherently unequal social

institutions, and aesthetics because it offers glimpses of the underlying, inherent equality

pervading the human world and our perceptions and expressions. In describing the

“intimate link” between politics and aesthetics so evident in his works, Tyson Lewis

19

explains that for Rancière, “aesthetics blur boundaries between what can and cannot be

said, can and cannot be seen, thus expanding, reconfiguring, hybridizing/mixing notions of

what is common to a community.”32 We all perceive and interpret the world separately; we

see the color red and react to unfamiliar cultural practices in disparate ways. Language

comes into play when we develop concepts, and this is how we engage in a shared world

that can be changed according to our interpretation of our experiences. Rancière argues

that insofar as schools are alleged to mitigate inequality, they do so under the assumption

that they are able to discern the proper placement of individuals in society, and the proper

allocation of resources in that society. In this way, social institutions such as schools

reinforce and standardize the police order. Rancière gives some attention to schooling

because, he argues, “school and society symbolize each other without end,” insofar as

schools are meant to administer or even elicit the knowledge necessary for our society to

‘progress.’33 The criticism of schools and their practices that Rancière offers thus has less

to do with the effectiveness of certain pedagogies and more with the overarching social and

political function that schools themselves serve.34

32. Tyson Lewis, “Education in the Realm of the Senses: Understanding Paulo

Freire's Aesthetic Unconscious Through Jacques Rancière,” Journal of Philosophy of

Education, 43 (2009), 289.

33. Jacques Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters” in Jacques Rancière:

Education, Truth, Emancipation, trans. Charles Bingham, ed. Charles Bingham and Gert

Biesta (New York: Continuum, 2010), 14.

34. Caroline Pelletier, “Review of Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta, Jacques

Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 31, no. 6

(2012): 615; Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta and Jacques Rancière: Education, Truth,

Emancipation (New York: Continuum, 2010), 44 and 113; Peter Hallward, “Jacques

Rancière and the Subversion of Mastery.” Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical

20

Even if a school has some different goal, such as ‘fostering independent thinking,’

or ‘going back to the basics,’ the context makes it such that these are still social institutions

set on making things right. One might ask, “What is so wrong with trying to make things

right with a school? Perhaps an ideal school would help students explore and innovate,

challenging injustices in their communities and truly reaching their potential. Would such a

school then be wrong in trying to make things right?” Rancière is not so extreme as to

insist that educators or citizens give up such goals. Rancière’s predominantly negative

depiction of schooling ought not be taken as a dictum to breed autodidactic recluses, but

instead, to constantly be vigilant of our attitudes toward schools and our projects within

them. Rancière says of his critiques of schooling that they create:

a dissonance one must, in a way, forget in order to continue improving schools,

programs and pedagogies, but that one must also, from time to time, listen to again

so that the act of teaching does not lose sight of the paradoxes that give it

meaning.35

As Pelletier puts it, Rancière is advocating for a practice rather than a state.36 His critiques

are thus of the type that should inform our lived attitudes; we ought not treat Rancière’s

critiques as encompassing a final and complete justification for abandoning schools.

According to Rancière, as we accept that schools and all social institutions are inherently

Theory 28, no.1 (2005): 28; Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 171; Clayton Crockett,

“Pedagogy and Radical Equality: Rancière’s Ignorant Schoolmaster,” Journal for Cultural

and Religious Theory 12, no. 2 (2012): 169; Yves Citton, “The Ignorant Schoolmaster:”

Knowledge and Authority,” in Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts. (New York: Routledge,

2010), 25-37.

35. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 15-16.

36. Pelletier, “No Time,” 104.

21

fraught with a kind of homogenizing limitation of perspectives and concepts, we must also

accept that positive moments or experiences can transpire anywhere in spite of these

problems. Having given a general gloss on his stance on schooling and the type of

schooling with which he is concerned, I will now cover the first of the specific critiques in

this chapter.

Inequality and Stultification

A major concept in Rancière’s oeuvre is inequality, as he is generally critical of

efforts to create equality through social institutions, schools among them. Rancière situates

himself in conversations regarding equality and takes steps to show the error in having any

faith that schools can achieve equality. With his background in Marxist thought, it is

understandable that he would have an interest in equality, since communism is generally

predicated on the idea that society should strive for equality. Applied to schooling,

Ranciere’s orientation can be understood as a kind of response to the notion popularly held

by educators and put famously by Horace Mann, that education can be “the great

equalizer.”37

Rancière is not wholly unique in this aspect of his critique. Charles Bingham states

in his concise commentary that Rancière overtly shares with critical and progressive

philosophers of education a criticism of traditionalism’s past-oriented epistemology, rigid

37. Horace Mann, ed. Cremin, Lawrence. The republic and the school: Horace

Mann on the education of free men. (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University,

1957), 87.

22

conception of authority, and spectatorship on the part of the student.38 Rancière strays from

them, however, for he argues that even those thinkers who are weary of traditional

hierarchical models within the student-teacher relationship often still assume that schools

are places where social inequalities can and should be solved, and neglect to question

either the existence of the teacher, of teaching itself, or the commonly held notions of truth,

certain virtues, etc.39 While Rancière acknowledges that social inequities are often

reproduced through schooling, just as has been argued by Pierre Bourdeiu and Jean-Claude

Passeron, among others, he parts ways with those who still place faith in schools to

somehow remedy this problem.40

Rancière argues that equality cannot be mediated and that even a ‘better’ school

does not amount to equality among students nor between schools.41 For example, the

educational policy No Child Left Behind supposes that educators and policy makers can

help every student and bring specific groups up to proficiency according to federally

38. Charles Bingham, “Under the Name of Method: On Jacques Rancière's

Presumptive Tautology,” Journal of Philosophy of Education (2009): 409.

39. Oliver Davis, “The Radical Pedagogies of François Bon and Jacques Rancière.”

French Studies: A Quarterly Review 64, no. 2 (2010): 182; Bingham, “Under the Name,”

410-411. It should be noted however that not all scholars agree that in his rebuttal of the

critical theorists and progressives, that Rancière is critiquing the act of teaching per se. See

Caroline Pelletier, “Emancipation, Equality and Education: Rancière’s Critique of

Bourdieu and the Question of Performativity,” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics

of Education 30, no. 2 (2009): 147.

40. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters” 9-12.

41. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 15; Lewis, “Realm of the Senses,”

297.

23

determined standards. While this is a noble initiative, it does assume that there can

eventually be a kind of equality, even if it is just at the ‘proficient’ level in reading per age

group, for instance. For Rancière, the very act of determining proficiency is “stultifying”

rather than emancipatory. Stultification occurs when it is assumed that knowledge is

transmitted directly from teacher to student, and when a student believes herself to be

inferior to her teacher on account of this disparity of knowledge.42 The very idea that

knowledge is a good that is allegedly distributed in schools – no less, ‘equally’ distributed

– assumes a dichotomy or distance between knowledge and ignorance, and relies on the

state and authority figures to regulate this ‘equality of knowledge distribution.’ Rancière

holds thus that the school is the body that mediates the distance between inequality and

future equality, thus postponing its realization.43

Explanation and Truth

Explanatory logic – or the grammar of schooling, as some researchers have called it

– is the mechanism, according to Rancière, both by which the social order is explained,

42. Mercieca and Mercieca. “How Early?” 852; Jacques Rancière, “The

Emancipated Spectator.” Art Forum (March 2007): 277; Tanke, Rancière, 13; Lewis,

“Aesthetic Regime,” 63; Crockett, “Pedagogy and Radical Equality,”169.

43. Claudia W. Ruitenberg, “Distance and Defamiliarisation: Translation as

Philosophical Method.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 43 (2009): 428; Tyson

Edward Lewis, “The Future of the Image in Critical Pedagogy.” Studies in Philosophy and

Education 30 (2011), 42; Walter O. Kohan, “Childhood,” 353; Pelletier, “Emancipation,”

145.

24

and upon which the social order necessarily depends.44 Within the explanatory structure of

the school it is the explicator, or teacher, who is presumed, via the ‘myth of pedagogy’, to

lead the student from ignorance to knowledge, thereby assisting in the larger project of

allegedly equalizing society and making democracy possible through this schooling.45

Rancière critiques the assumption that the teacher is more intelligent than the student, and

insists that the roles within the ‘logic of the spectator,’ wherein the student simply watches

the teacher, can always be reversed.46 It is the act of being a “master-explicator” that one

should avoid if one is to follow Rancière’s directives, for it is the act of explaining that

44. Jacques Rancière, On the Shores of Politics. Translated by Liz Heron (New

York: Verso, 1992), 83. Charles Bingham, “Settling No Conflict In The Public Place:

Truth In Education, And In Rancièrean Scholarship,” Educational Philosophy & Theory

42, no. 5-6 (2010): 138. Reference to “grammar of schooling”: Jan Masschelein, Jan and

Maarten Simons, “The Hatred of Public Schooling: The School as the Mark of

Democracy,” 150-165. In Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy Ed.

Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein (Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 150.

45. Davis, “The Radical Pedagogies,” 183-184; Rancière, “The Emancipated

Spectator,” 270-281; Carl Sanders Säfström, “Rethinking Emancipation, Rethinking

Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 30, no. 2 (2011): 206-207; Pelletier,

“Emancipation;” 144; Alex Means, “Jacques Rancière, Education, and the Art of

Citizenship.” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural studies 33, no. 1(2011):

34-35; Daniel Friedrich, Bryn Jaastad, and Thomas S. Popkewitz. “Democratic Education:

An (Im)Possibility That Yet Remains To Come.” Educational Philosophy & Theory 42,

no. 5-6 (2010): 571-587.

46. On the ‘logic of the spectator’ see Charles Bingham, “Against Educational

Humanism: Rethinking Spectatorship in Dewey and Freire,” Studies in Philosophy and

Education (2015): 189. For more on the alignment of Rancière’s views with that of

progressive and critical pedagogy see Goele Cornelissen, “The Public Role Of Teaching:

To Keep The Door Closed.” In Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of

Democracy, 15-30. Edited by Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein. Walden, MA: Wiley-

Blackwell, 2011, 21-22; Sarah Galloway, “Reconsidering Emancipatory Education:

Staging a Conversation Between Paulo Freire and Jacques Rancière,” Educational Theory,

62 (2012): 182; Bingham, “Under the Name,” 409.

25

presupposes ignorance.47 Indeed, one should avoid wholeheartedly believing that this

‘myth of schooling’ maps on to reality – that those with certain rankings or pieces of

knowledge are somehow more deserving of care, social benefits, etc. A person should not

expect nor depend on others to explain their worth to them.

Rancière’s critique may be akin to an argument about paradigms or cultural

practices, wherein sets of beliefs, foundational texts, historical narratives, or languages are

recognized as contingent as opposed to necessary. Rancière is bringing to the foreground

the tendency in Western academia (and he traces this back to ancient Greek philosophy) to

portray schooling – from preschool to post-graduate studies – as objective and immune

from the biases or tunnel vision often attributed to religious sects, conservative or radical

political parties, pre-technological civilizations and the like. While it would be one thing

for schooling to exist as its own project concerned with its own acquisition of truth or with

its own skill-building, it is another to have a connection between this schooling and the

distribution of roles within society.

47. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 47. Neil Hopkins, “Freedom as Non-

Domination, Standards and the Negotiated Curriculum,” Journal of Philosophy of

Education 49 (2015): 616; Den K. Heyer, “What If Curriculum (of a Certain Kind) Doesn't

Matter?” Curriculum Inquiry 39 (2009): 31; Davis, “The Radical Pedagogies,” 183-184.

Mercieca and Mercieca, “How Early,” 852; Mercieca, “Initiating,” 411; Teresa N. R.

Gonçalves, Elisabete Xavier Gomes, Mariana Gaio Alves, and Nair Rios Azevedo,

“Theory and Texts of Educational Policy: Possibilities and Constraints,” Studies in

Philosophy and Education 3, no. 1 (2012): 281; Säfström, “Rethinking Emancipation,”

206-207; Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 171-172. Indeed, this is one bit of irony that many

authors have pointed out in their works in which they have been explaining Rancière’s

philosophy – the way out, of course, is to instead insist, as Rancière does, that one is

“intervening.” For example, see a Rancièrian intervention on Biesta’s work in Mercieca,

“Initiating,” 408.

26

As I indicated previously, Rancière is not so extreme that he is advocating for a

complete overhaul of schooling. He is not suggesting that mere vocational training should

replace what we have now, or that schools should all be privatized so that there is less

danger of widespread dogma. Each of these alternatives would come with its own

problems that would still be reflections of the already present inequalities within our

society. Rancière is on the side of the people, as is common for those in favor of public

education, and he is arguably interested in helping students flourish despite their

socioeconomic backgrounds. What he is problematizing is an unquestioned faith that

schools can achieve all of this. Even though he may not be in the business of making

blueprints for schools supporting social mobility (much less any kind of school),

Rancière’s critique of the limitations of schooling may lead us to think of emancipation as

something that can occur regardless of one’s place in life, and regardless of the results of

your evaluation within schools. In other words, social mobility as a goal should be

scrutinized, but the notion of becoming ones best self – granting this does not impinge on

others – could still be seen as a good in Rancière’s system. Self-improvement, however, is

a perfect example of the way in which Rancière warns against fixation on Truth. There are

some ways in which truth is not objective or universal – knowing what one is capable of,

what it means to be putting in individual effort, etc. When truth is prized in schooling as

something that can be acquired and that teachers and administrators can assess your

knowledge of, problems of inequality arise. What should be avoided is the process of

stultification, wherein an individual is made to feel inferior or incapable due to the fact that

27

reality and their place in it is repeatedly being explained to them by those in superior

positions.

Progress

Throughout his political works Rancière critiques the notion of progress, and

schools are an iconic example of how progress features in society. The notion of progress

presupposes some kind of end in which there is harmony, or a consensus within a group of

people (be it based on scientific knowledge in a scientific community, justice within a

society, identity through signifiers, etc.).48 In order for progress to be made there needs to

be some gradation of value wherein the future so to speak is qualitatively better than the

present. Rancière writes that “progress is the pedagogical fiction built into the fiction of the

society as a whole,” and that “never will the student catch up with the master.”49 Rancière

insists that even the progressivist teacher is still focused on growth for each student and

has, as Cornelissen explains, a “permanent focus on the measurement of each student’s

individual learning needs.”50 The pedagogy of progress perpetuates a vertical hierarchy

48. Lewis, Aesthetics of Education, 6; Lewis, “The Future,” 48; Rancière writes

“the law of consensus is also a law of identity” in Moments Politiques: Interventions 1977-

2009. Translated by Mary Foster (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009), 46.

49. Jacques Rancière. The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual

Emancipation. Translated by Kristin Ross (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991),

119-120.

50. Goele Cornelissen, “The Public Role Of Teaching: To Keep The Door Closed.”

In Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy, 15-30. Edited by Maarten

Simons and Jan Masschelein (Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 22.

28

between those who are on a lower rung or stage of intelligence and/or emancipation, and

those ‘progressive pedagogues,’ by promising a future realization of equality, all under the

pretense that there is some reason that those on the lower rung are dependent on those on

the higher rungs for this help.51 According to this critique, measurement of growth in

schools simply serves as an explanation of difference and reinstatement of inequality –

between student and teacher, teacher and administrator, etc. – not actual measurement of

intelligence nor growth along a path toward knowledge.52 It is not that hard work or

usefulness of research, skill sets, or experience ought to be devalued, but that we ought not

entrench all of society’s goals and values into one story, one roadmap of knowledge

acquisition, with one select rank of people who are allowed to measure progress along such

a map.

On this path, there are truth conditions assumed by anyone doing the measuring,

whether consciously or not: the teacher/explicator (or measurer) has truth and the student

51. For a discussion of the hierarchy of progress: Mercieca, “Initiating,” 409;

Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 28; Arne De Boever, “Scenes of Aesthetic Education:

Rancière, Oedipus, and Notre Musique.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education 46, no. 3

(2012): 70, 77, and 81; Ruitenberg, “Distance,” 428; Gert Biesta, “Toward a New “Logic”

of Emancipation: Foucault and Rancière.” Journal of Philosophy of Education (2008):

169-177; Adam Burgos, “Highlighting the Importance of Education and Work in

Rancière.” PhaenEx 8, no. 1 (2013): 302. Pelletier, “Emancipation,” 144. On the

asymmetry of the Rancereian teacher-student relation: Carl Sanders Säfström, “What I

Talk About When I Talk About Teaching and Learning.” Studies in Philosophy and

Education 30 (2011): 489.

52. Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 172. This perhaps leaves open the question about

whether or not we can measure will and the progression of will. On explanation: Crockett,

“Pedagogy and Radical Equality,” 169.

29

(or measured) does not.53 The notion of progress is thus predicated on a transcendent

notion of truth, wherein the truth, or the good, is somehow outside – a conception of truth

to which Rancière is adamantly opposed.54 It is not so much that Rancière is objecting to

there being objective facts (e.g. water can exist in multiple states – gas, liquid, solid) or to

there being steps toward learning things (e.g. numeration before counting). However, for

Rancière’s critiques to benefit people in the egalitarian sense that he intends, pedagogues

must not hold too tightly to this quest for progress. Nor ought we feel beholden to any

value we attribute to this truth acquisition, nor any roles we assign based on such

acquisition. If a student does not grasp chemistry or counting or civic skills, this ought not

determine how we treat them or conceive of our relation to them; we ought not ‘defer

equality’.55

Rancière thus inspires a focus on the way we situate ourselves in relation to others

in each moment, as opposed to focusing on progress and the future.56 This is easier said

than done, because we certainly each set goals, engage in projects that take time and

planning, and naturally think about the future. However, this can be a helpful reminder of

an ideal that some of us may share, to live our values in each moment. In the case of

Rancière’s insistence on assuming equality in each moment, this means that pedagogues

53. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 108-109; Mercieca and Mercieca,

“How Early,” 853; Lewis, “Aesthetic Regime,” 63.

54. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 119.

55. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 8.

56. Lewis, The Aesthetics of Education, 136.

30

ought to recognize that each person, whether teacher or student, is similar insofar as they

have their own individual will and participate in a shared world of concepts, language,

customs, and so on.

In this section I began with our common or ordinary understanding of how the

school is meant to help ‘right’ society. Next, I outlined Rancière’s critiques of inequality

and stultification, explanation and truth, and progress. It should be evident that the burden

falls on Rancière to indicate what good can come of schooling. In the section that follows,

I move to assist Rancière in this endeavor.

Rancière’s Alternative Approach to Schooling

Comprising an alternative to the values, assumptions, and negative patterns central

to Rancière’s critique of schooling covered above, this section outlines norms that can be

drawn from Rancière’s works. To be clear, I use the word norm loosely because Rancière

does not offer prescriptive recommendations and is indeed opposed to recommendations

given the inherent risk of dogmatism. Again, my interest is in applying various aspects of

Rancière’s conceptual framework to thinking through philosophy in schools; I am not

intending to be entirely faithful to Rancière. Among these norms pertinent to schooling

that I have mind, which contrast with the critiques outlined in the previous section, are the

belief in a separation between language and truth, the assumption of equality of

intelligence, and the valuing of dissensus. Before elucidating these norms, it is worthwhile

to give a bit more context for Rancière’s writings on education.

31

Context: The Ignorant Schoolmaster

In Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual

Emancipation, as well as in several other essays, Rancière describes Joseph Jacotot, a

nineteenth century French schoolteacher who engaged in no direct instruction yet had

students who learned, insofar as they were able to learn French by referring only to a

bilingual French/Flemish copy of the Telemaque. The students were able to describe in

French what they were reading, after many repetitions of reciting the text. Jacotot had an

interpreter give the instructions to the students and then encouraged the students as they

recited the text in French. The takeaway from this, in Ranciere’s view, is that a teacher can

“teach” what he or she does not know. Rancière uses this figure to exemplify “the ignorant

schoolmaster,” who embodies certain norms.

The ignorant schoolmaster, who is also said to be engaged in what Rancière refers

to as universal teaching, allows for her students to experience emancipation, which occurs

through subjectivization. The ignorant schoolmaster is not needed for subjectivization and

emancipation, but if a teacher does not embody the attitude of an ignorant schoolmaster,

they will do nothing but impede or overlook emancipation when it occurs. Rancière

discusses emancipation and subjectivization in contexts other than in schooling – in art and

in real politics, for example. When it comes to his limited works on schooling, however,

the ignorant schoolmaster always figures as a kind of ideal. By describing the belief in a

separation between language and truth, the assumption of equality of intelligence, and the

valuing of dissensus, this section should make the meaning of the resulting emancipation

32

via subjectivization in the context of schooling clear. We can now begin the journey, and

perhaps (to Rancière’s dismay) make progress.

Separation between Language and Truth

Rancière asserts that the most important virtue a schoolmaster can have is that of

ignorance.57 Now, is Rancière suggesting that teachers should withhold their knowledge

from students?58 Rancière writes that the ignorant schoolmaster need not be ignorant, but

should:

disassociate his knowledge from his mastery. He does not teach his knowledge to

his students. He commands them to venture forth in the forest, to report what they

see, what they think of what they have seen, to verify it, and so on. What he ignores

is the gap between two intelligences.59

Content here it not as important as the relationship that the teacher has to the student. To

put this in my own language, even if the instructor knows some content, the goal is to be

ignorant of the disparity between his knowledge and his student’s knowledge – to protect

against the tendency to inflate one’s ego, propagate a superiority complex, and treat the

student with judgment. Thus, it is an intentional disruption of the social hierarchy that may

form when/if one assumes that teachers have power (or the ability to influence social

57. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 1.

58. Sardar M. Anwaruddin, “Pedagogy Of Ignorance,” Educational Philosophy &

Theory 47, no. 7 (2015): 734-746.

59. Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator,” 275.

33

change) because they are more intelligent or are destined for their social roles because they

possess something students and others do not.60 Ultimately the ignorant schoolmaster must

dissociate her mastery from her knowledge, recognizing that her mastery – as in, her role

as a “master,” not her mastery of a subject or skill – and her knowledge are not linked in

essence.61 Just because she is a teacher, it does not mean that she is inherently more

intelligent, let alone more valuable, than her student. This refusal to stake a claim on the

essence of social roles and power, this refusal to affirm that there is something essentially

true is but a symptom of Rancière’s whole approach to truth: truth simply is not something

that language (i.e. society) can represent.

As Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta describe it, Rancière relies on an

“emancipatory logic” which is agnostic about truth, holding that truth is immanent to

education, rather than something that exists out there in the world that some of us can

apprehend.62 Rancière maintains that although the idea of truth may well be something

meaningful, it is not something that can be explained: democratic acts, or demonstrations

of equality, are not phenomena that can fit into a coherent logic, be represented, nor given

60. Nancy Vansieleghem, “This is (Not) a Philosopher: On Educational Philosophy

in an Age of Psychologisation,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 32 (2013): 609;

Kohan, “Childhood,” 353.

61. Jacques Rancière “Against an Ebbing Tide,” Interview translated by Richard

Stamp, 238-251. In Reading Rancière, 238-251. Edited by Paul Bowman and Richard

Stamp (New York: Continuum, 2011), 245.

62. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 112 and 121; Bingham, “Settling No

Conflict,” 134-149.

34

a name.63 The problems inherent in setting up a dichotomy between those who allegedly

have the truth (teachers) and those who do not (students) can be avoided or at least

dampened by simply being agnostic about truth. This requires that one disassociate the

notion of truth from speech utterances, and acknowledge that the police order is not

comprehensive nor definitive, but rather is quite arbitrary and malleable.64 Indeed,

Rancière’s ideal, emancipatory pedagogue practices “a more general, active form of

ignorance: an ignoring of truth.”65 As Biesta puts it, such a teacher is not ‘ignorant’

because he or she “lacks knowledge, but because knowledge is not the ‘way’ of

emancipation.”66 It thus becomes less important for a teacher to lecture and explain truths.

The kind of truth that enables one to be emancipated, to truly act in accordance

with freedom – the very thing that (arguably) allows us to be moral agents, feel happiness,

etc. – is the kind of truth that cannot be verified, cannot be known empirically. We are still

beings that live in relation to one another; this should not be understood as a

recommendation for solipsism. However, this is a recommendation that we distinguish

between the faults of socially constructed knowledge and any immanent truths that we may

have access to on a more primordial level.

63. Derycke, Marc. “Ignorance And Translation, ‘Artifacts’ For Practices Of

Equality.” In Rancière, Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy, 43-59. Edited by

Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein. Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 47.

64. Bingham and Biesta, Jacques Rancière, 132.

65. Bingham and Biesta, Jacques Rancière, 132.

66. Gert Biesta, “Don’t be fooled by ignorant schoolmasters: On the role of the

teacher in emancipatory education,” Policy Futures in Education 15, no. 1 (2017): 66.

35

As Pelletier puts it, the epistemological assumption informing Rancière’s work is

that knowledge is a practice of recognition within communities. She writes that knowledge

in The Ignorant Schoolmaster is “a position within an evolving set of relations, a move

which focuses analysis on the principles by which knowledge is recognized within a

collectivity, rather than on whether knowledge is possessed.”67 Knowledge is not

something that is done to anyone. Instead, knowledge and truth in Rancière’s world are

done by people, characterized by horizontal rather than hierarchical moves, revealing that

existing links between power (claims to authority) and knowledge do not map on to any

essential differences among people, but are instead historically contingent and arbitrary.68

Using the new “emancipatory logic” Rancière inspires, one trusts the experiences of

students because there is not a belief that truth is only accessible to some.69

Rancière criticizes the notion of progress and highlights the gap entailed in any

model of growth (you must be separate from X to be able to one day attain X). This gap

itself becomes positive when Rancière examines it. The distance between any subject (be

they teacher or student) and object (‘knowledge’ in this case) is precisely the space that

provides room for emancipation.70 If we recognize, for example, that what we call “purple”

is contingent on our personal sensory experience, then we can recognize that the

67. Pelletier, “No Time,” 101-102.

68. Biesta, “Toward a New;” De Boever, “Scenes,” 70.

69. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 127.

70. Lewis, “The Future,” 41-42.

36

contingency exists on many different planes, among people, between experiences and

concepts. When we recognize that we are each always engaged in some form of this, of

attempting to bridge a gap between our inner experiences and our shared world, we can

recognize a kind of equality there. We can recognize that apparent differences are still all

hinging on what we label things, how we perceive them, and assumptions about what our

shared world(s) consists of. That distance between the way the world is (or how we each

perceive it) and the way that we name it, discuss it, and value it, makes all the difference.

Recognizing this distance can result in a feeling of humility or superiority (Rancière is

obviously advocating for the former). Ignoring the distance altogether certainly can amount

to a dogmatic perspective in life.

The Assumption of Equality of Intelligence

The assumption of equality of intelligence for Rancière is related to his recognition

of the separation between truth and language, because it is all about the way in which we

each are equally separated by distance. This norm indeed acknowledges the larger societal

impacts that arise when we disregard this equality, serving as a response to the critique of

inequality outlined in the previous section. We all start out as equal insofar as we are

conscious players in the world, surviving as we do, but then we take on social roles or

functions and pretend that they are predicated on something essential, which we know we

cannot access or at least not put into words. Some people are more intelligent than others,

and thus more deserving of wealth or power, the story would go. To be ignorant of

inequality is to see past these social roles and stories. When an ignorant schoolmaster

37

embodies an ignorance of inequality, this precludes the signification of an objective ‘end’

of knowledge by which the teacher might judge her students.71 It is not just ignorance of

inequality that the ignorant schoolmaster upholds, but ignorance with respect to epistemic

certainty and her role as a teacher, and indeed, the alleged roles that his or her students are

allegedly destined for. To put it simply, claims to knowledge, as well as ignorance, have

social impacts for Rancière, and we ought to be vigilant about these impacts.

It may seem at this point that the proposition is somewhat naïve or simply wrong.

There is a clear difference between the amount of effort some people will put forth in order

to achieve certain levels of social success, and it would be absurd to instead pretend that

everyone is equal. For example, some people will work several jobs to make ends meet and

obtain a better quality of life, while others who already have that same quality of life

(maybe they were born into a family that provided it) put forth minimal effort to maintain

that experience given their life circumstances and/or demographic reality. Rancière is not

asking for us to ignore that there are differences like this. The assumption of equality of

intelligence is a direct response to the aim in schooling to achieve equality. This aim of

reaching equality, Rancière argues, actually presupposes inequality and is premised on the

aforementioned problems of the police order and progress.

What is needed for Rancière is an ignorant schoolmaster who can assume equality

and guide her students with her will through the space of possibility in which ruptures of

new and unforeseen meaning can erupt in any direction – rather than to a set end.72 This

71. Dercyke, “Ignorance and Translation,” 51.

72. Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator,” 277; Lewis, “Aesthetic Regime,” 63.

38

way of viewing equality is different from the typical way it is framed, which is why it is

coined ‘radical equality.’73 The assumption that all are of equal intelligence is an axiom or

hypothesis from which we act, not an ending place nor fact to prove; it is in principle not

limited by expectations or assessments, and is an assumption we must return to

constantly.74 Rancière encourages educators to look more deeply into this tendency to

judge students to be unintelligent for various reasons.

Rancière writes, “the equality of intelligence is not the equality of all

manifestations of intelligence. It is the equality of intelligence in all its manifestations.”75

This apparent play on words is profound, in my reading, for it is asserting that there is one

intelligence that is showing itself in different ways, as opposed to intelligence having many

different forms. It is akin to saying that “we are all one person” as opposed to “we are all

people.” If you take this too literally, you might think that there is just some kind of

mistake. Granted, we are all separate people and we are not one person. Rancière is

concerned about the impacts of supposing things, though. Suppose that we are all one

person, despite the different ways we look, our different perspectives, behaviors, desires,

and so on. If we suppose we are still one person despite the apparent differences, we

73. Crockett, “Pedagogy and Radical Equality;” Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison

Ross, Eds. Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical

Equality. New York: Continuum (2012).

74. Masschelein and Simons, “The Hatred of Public Schooling,” 155.

75. Rancière “The Emancipated Spectator,” 275.

39

automatically have more patience for trying to understand others. To me, this is the impact

of suggesting that there is only one intelligence manifesting in different ways.

Naturally, this implies that one cannot form judgments about different kinds of

intelligence.76 If one states that there are different manifestations of intelligence without

referring to a singular intelligence, then it is much more natural to develop a ranking and

classification system. As an egalitarian, Rancière is working to avoid such rankings. Thus,

the notion of a singular intelligence plays an important role in thinking through

egalitarianism in education. Viewing intelligence as collective, singular, emergent

phenomena – rather than varied along a linear path and thus admitting of comparison of

different manifestations of it – frees us from the tendency to try to assess different abilities

and use them to explain power disparities.77 Again, this should not all be taken as a

directive to completely stop what we are doing in schools (introducing students to skills,

equipping students with resources to specialize in careers of their choosing, and so on), but

should inspire us to consider our assumptions in schools.

Additionally, conceiving of intelligence as singular should not be conflated with a

conception of any kind of singular material force (be it political or otherwise physical in

any way), for Rancière explains that this common power of intelligence “binds individuals

together to the very extent that it keeps them apart from each other; it is the power each of

us possesses in equal measure to make our own way in the world.”78 Nor should

76. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 48-49.

77. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 31.

78. Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 169; Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator,” 278.

40

conceiving of intelligence as shared and thus as a ‘unitary’ entity mislead us to think that

consensus or totality is the goal, nor that we can realize or uncover this intelligence or

solve ‘problems of ignorance’ with finality.79 This singular intelligence will ever be out of

reach, evading quantification, and an appreciation for this may serve educators and

students well in schools.80

Intelligence is argued by Rancière to be synonymous with equality: since

intelligence is contingent on understanding another person or being understood by another

person, the possibility for which presupposes equal capacity for this understanding.81

Equality of intelligence implies not only that when one uses language one is assuming that

another person can discern one’s meaning, but also that there are no two kinds of

intelligence – only one which is predicated on “the wish to say and the wish to hear.”82

Rancière suggests provocatively that there is a “collective intelligence of imagination”

79. Christiane Thompson, “The Philosophy of Education as the Economy and

Ecology of Pedagogical Knowledge.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 34 (2015):

662; Pelletier, “Emancipation,” 144; Rancière in interview by Davide Panagia “Dissenting

Words: A Conversation With Jacques Rancière.” Interview with Davide Panagia.

Diacritics, (2000), 124.

80. Rancière, On the Shores; 84. Mercieca and Mercieca, “How Early,” 857.

81. Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 177.

82. Rancière, On the Shores, 81-82; Joris Vlieghe, “Alphabetization as

Emancipatory Practice: Freire, Rancière, and Critical Pedagogy.” Philosophy of Education

(2013): 187-188.

41

wherein there is not a goal of consensus but rather, where dissensus continually occurs,

where forms deemed recognizable are constantly challenged.83

The Value of Dissensus

Rancière’s notion of dissensus can be understood as an alternative to the ideal of

progress. For Rancière, real politics (not the police order) is characterized by dissensus – it

is a “difference within the same,” and it cannot be deduced based on an alleged essence

within a given community, nor can it be foreseen or obtain in any place but the present

(there is no static end of emancipation).84 Dissensus is inherently anarchistic, with relations

always able to be set up differently.85 The impetus for emancipation is the recognition that

the will does not correspond to a cohesive whole upon which consensus can be reached.

Therefore, there is no ordered harmony or end to which we can progress. Of course, people

should all set goals, challenge themselves, and grow, but the catch is that there should also

be vigilance against the habit of seeing institutions as the arbiters of such ‘progress.’ For

83. Jacques Rancière, “The Misadventures of Critical Thinking,” in Criticism of

Contemporary Issues Serralves International Conferences, (2008): 193; Lewis, “The

Future,” 48.

84. Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus,”1; Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,”

34-35; On difference: Säfström, “What I Talk About,” 489; Galloway, “Reconsidering,”

180; Lewis, “The Future,” 48.

85. On the asymmetry and horizontology of the Rancereian teacher-student relation

and the ‘new logic of emancipation’: Säfström, “What I Talk About,” 489; Biesta,

“Toward a New,” 175-176.

42

those interested in challenging the police order, there is a need to be conscious of the

internalized metrics and their origin.

When discussing the human will en masse, Rancière states, “a force is a force. It

can be reasonable to make use of it. But it is irrational to want to render it reasonable,” and

that “society as such will never be reasonable.”86 The overall picture is thus that the will, or

the inherent, equal intelligence shared by all, does not correspond with commonly held

notions of rational progress toward consensus nor ideal, harmonized, democratic social

institutions. Politics and emancipation, two ideals within Rancière’s framework, occur in

non-teleological ways, in anarchistic moments that do not conform to predictably

discursive frameworks. This is why Alex Means explains that Rancière’s notion of

education can be described as a question.87 Indeed, Rancière’s entire body of work rests on

his insistence that signs – words and their stipulated meanings – do not embody an

essential connection with their signifiers, and indeed, that we cannot speak of an essential

quality of any phenomena (hence his adamant disavowal of ontology).88 It is easy to see

here how this line of thinking corresponds with his belief in the separation between

language and truth as outlined earlier.

There can still be better schools and better police orders, for we can have better

understandings of “how words, stories, and performances can help us change something in

86. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 91 and 96.

87. Lewis, Aesthetics of Education, 34; Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 222; Means,

“Jacques Rancière,” 29.

88. Mercieca, “Initiating,” 412; Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 168.

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the world we live in.”89 Carl Anders Safstrom characterizes Rancière’s critique of schools

as exposing the ‘myth of schooling’ and suggests that Rancière’s notion of dissensus is

what should happen in schools; we ought to have pedagogy of dissensus.90 This is not a

specific method, but as Safstrom states, entails asking “what do you think differently,” and

requires that we ask this “in such a way as to prevent an answer that reestablishes the

normal circumstances for that thinking.”91 In this way, dissensus is not a technique but “the

force through which the naturalness of orders is undone,” allowing us to challenge

preconceived notions and social constructs through and through.92 In my view, this sounds

just like what philosophy is – challenging all claims to knowledge, and challenging the

very premise of a school as a place where knowledge is acquired.

Based on what I have represented from Rancière’s works it would seem that we

have ample reason to be uncertain about the possibility of a ‘pedagogy of dissensus’

actually having a positive effect, given his strong warnings against pedagogies of all kinds.

However, there are also works of Rancière’s and interpretations of his work that give hope

to the democratic possibilities inherent in schools, gesturing toward a positive appreciation

89. Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator,” 280.

90. Carl Anders Säfström, “The Immigrant Has No Proper Name.” In Rancière,

Public Education, and the Taming of Democracy, 93-103. Edited by Maarten Simons and

Jan Masschelein (Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell), 2011.

91. Säfström, “The Immigrant Has No Proper Name,” 102.

92. Säfström, “The Immigrant Has No Proper Name,” 102.

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for schooling.93 My interest is to unpack the nuance of Rancière’s complaints and

suggestions about schooling as they pertain to philosophical practice in schools, to hold on

to this hope and skepticism while pondering the possibility of philosophy in schools.

Conclusion

For Rancière, while schools may never be emancipatory nor constitutive of

equality, there can still be ‘better’ schools.94 He admonishes attempts to institutionalize

equality, yet also provides glimpses of a proposed alternative logic. In his preface to

Bingham and Biesta’s book on his educational critiques, Rancière demonstrates this two-

part move well:

Distinguishing the act of intellectual emancipation from the institution of the

people’s instruction is to affirm that there are no stages to equality; that equality is

a complete act or is not at all. There is a heavy price to pay for this escape. If

explanation is a social method, the method by which inequality gets represented

and reproduced, and if the institution is the place where this representation

operates, it follows that intellectual emancipation is necessarily distinct from social

and institutional logic. That is to say that there is no social emancipation, and no

emancipatory school.95

If institutions are needed for people to be intellectually emancipated, then they can

obviously become the deciding factor as to whether a given person has become

93. It should be noted that I am using democratic in the Rancièrean sense here. See

Bingham, “Settling No Conflict,” 139.

94. Lewis, “Realm of the Senses,” 297; Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,”

15.

95. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 15.

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“intellectually emancipated.” If this determination is instead in the hands of an individual,

and every individual, then equality simply already exists, and schools (at least those whose

premise is to contribute to equality) become invalidated. However, this also implies that

schools literally cannot be the arbiters of intellectual emancipation. Rancière advocates for

us to ‘pay this heavy price,’ and to strive toward emancipation for all.

We cannot count on any social institution to be emancipatory, but we can see it as a

social project to constantly mistrust the notion that we have confirmation regarding truth

and who has access to it; we can assume and ‘be of the opinion’ that all have equal

intelligence.96 We can appreciate dissensus when it occurs, rather than striving for a final

harmony or consensus mitigated through schools. Real inequality, in terms of access to

resources, wealth in general, freedom from violence, etc., exists in the world. Is the root of

this inequality knowledge/intelligence, or is it something we contribute to with our every

assumption?

Moving into some conjecture about what ‘better schools’ might look like for

Rancière, it would seem from all this that having a space without ends is the best-case

scenario for a school.97 In contrast to the common aim of putting equality as an end,

96. Galloway, “Reconsidering,” 166.

97. Jacques Rancière, “Thinking Between Disciplines: An Aesthetics of

Knowledge,” Translated by Jon Roffe. Parrhesia. 1 (2006): 5-6. Tyson, in Aeshetics of

Education, 136, also suggests that it is in refusing to reclaim the past or define the future

that the ignorant schoolmaster can recognize the equality that exists in the present. In

contrast to the common aim of putting equality as an end, thereby granting that there is

something to fix, Rancière offers equality as an initial axiom, and leaves aims and ends out

of it; it is precisely by setting those aims beforehand that the assumption of inequality is

perpetuated. See Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 220 and 221, and Pelletier, “Poetics,” 273.

46

thereby granting that there is something to fix, perpetuating power disparities in the name

of reaching harmonious consensus, Rancière offers equality as an initial axiom, and leaves

aims and ends out of it.98 We might thus envision a school of possibility, where the

potential in the present moment matters more than the outcomes. Such a school would not

emphasize possibility simply to contrast with a school aimed toward progress, but instead

would be one in which notions of progress are problematized. There are plenty of models

of schools that are intentionally democratic or “free,” without curricula, grading, etc.,

though they are also available only for those who can pay or who have savvy parents;

radical schools are not the norm for most U.S. students. Looking further into whether such

models would be conducive to Rancièrian norms surrounding education would be an

interesting project for the future, and I do this a bit more in Chapter Five, but my focus in

this dissertation is to look specifically at the thread of philosophy within Rancière’s works,

and to apply this to my investigation of one way that philosophy is practiced in U.S. K-12

schools. If we are to operate in our current K-12 public schools geared largely toward

outcomes, what does it really mean to be an ignorant schoolmaster who is keen on

dissensus? Are those who do CPI on the right track?

As this chapter has illuminated, Rancière critiques schooling yet also invokes many

themes and concepts that may be helpful in contributing to better schools. Philosophical

readers may have read this chapter with a keen interest in how it is that philosophy relates

to Rancière’s critique of schooling and his more positive, alternative insights. In my view,

98. Lewis, Aeshetics of Education, 136; Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 220 and 221;

Pelletier, “Poetics,” 273.

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society entails schooling mechanisms by necessity – whether formally or not, even in the

simple mechanism of a shared language – so we ought to accept this whilst also

considering ways to respect ourselves and others. My overall aim in this dissertation is to

inquire into how Rancière’s treatment of philosophy is particularly useful in improving

schooling, even if the improvement is simply a dose of humility, given the inherent

limitations of schooling. The first step, covered in this chapter, was to look at the context

for this project: Rancière on schooling, in both his critical and positive approaches.

Shifting the focus now, Chapter Three will investigate Rancière as his work pertains to

philosophy itself, so that I may continue building my case for using Rancière’s approach to

philosophy as a tool for improving K-12 schools.

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CHAPTER THREE

RANCIÈRE ON PHILOSOPHY

Having looked in the last chapter at Rancière’s critiques of traditional schooling as

well as his alternative values, this chapter takes the same approach regarding his treatment

of philosophy. This chapter takes up the question posed by Joseph Tanke, in his Jacques

Ranciere: An Introduction: should we take Rancière’s works to be indicative of a

“departure from philosophy as such or just philosophy as it is traditionally practiced and

conceived?”99 In other words, might it be that we should not count Rancière as a

philosopher, or is he introducing a different way of philosophizing?

To answer Tanke’s question, I divide the chapter into two main sections. In the first

section, “Rancière’s Critiques of Philosophy,” I describe Rancière’s critique of philosophy

as it is traditionally practiced and conceived, parsing the critique into three main focal

points: elitism, method, and truth. In the second section, “Rancière’s Positive Conception

of Philosophy,” I describe his account of how philosophy should be practiced and

conceived, contrasting the former three critiques with what I pick out as his alternatives:

egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity. By putting forth these critiques and alternatives I

show Rancière to indeed be departing from how philosophy is traditionally practiced and

conceived, setting the reader up to see, in Chapter Four, the similarities to how community

of philosophical inquiry (CPI) conceives of philosophy.

99. Tanke, Rancière, 7.

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I would like to remind the reader that trying to categorize, systematize, or order any

part of Rancière’s works, particularly in the interest of fleshing out what we might call

positive threads within his conception, is a bit paradoxical. In the same way that explaining

Rancière’s critique of explanation may come across as ironic, so too might it seem strange

to argue for these kinds of actionable ideals or clear concepts. Rancière himself insists that

he is not trying to set norms, that his practice of philosophy is admittedly “difficult,” and

that he does not have a system.100 My project here is not wholly consistent with Rancière’s

project. My intention is thus to allow what I appreciate from him to inform my own

thinking about philosophy in schools.

By way of another disclaimer, what I am calling positive may be understood as

what I take to be Rancière’s suggestions on what he either thinks philosophy can and

should do, or what he thinks it is when done properly. It is an ideal we might consider if

we want to avoid reproducing the same kind of problematic behaviors or assumptions

Rancière condemns. It can be thought of as a contrast to the negative treatment of

philosophy in his works wherein he is critiquing the tradition or profession of philosophy.

Rancière has been referred to as having an emancipatory philosophy, and has used this

term to describe the Jacototian pedagogy he praises in The Ignorant Schoolmaster and

elsewhere.101 I avoid using the phrase “emancipatory philosophy” because to me it

100. Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus,” 17.

101. Hallward writes that Rancière is “one of only a small handful of French

thinkers who persist, today, in a genuinely emancipatory conception of philosophy.” See

Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 43.

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connotes a structured approach, and does not fully capture the way in which Rancière

offers only piecemeal suggestions portraying the positive thread in his conception of

philosophy. Ultimately, I think that the connotation of “positive philosophy” is less

problematic than the connotation of “emancipatory philosophy,” but it may in the end be a

stylistic choice. In any case, this chapter is meant to demonstrate the appeal of looking at

Rancière’s quite loosely termed conception of philosophy, including the critiques and

loosely termed positive threads, so that we might apply this to schooling, given what we

know of his critiques and alternatives regarding schooling from the preceding chapter.

Rancière’s Critiques of Philosophy

Figuring consistently from his very first publications to his most recent, Rancière’s

critiques of philosophy can be divided into three issues which I will address in this order:

elitism, method, and the notion of truth. It is not my intent here to assert whether Rancière

is correct in his critiques, it is simply to characterize his dissatisfaction with philosophy

writ large.102 Further, I have chosen to sort and focus his work using these three terms due

to my larger interest in comparing his conception of philosophy with that of CPI, as I will

do in the following chapter.

102. Indeed, I would like to challenge some of his interpretations of the Platonic

dialogues, but this is not the place for those challenges.

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Elitism

Rancière is adamantly against claims that connect philosophy with positions of

power, whereby a person of authority claims that it is their intelligence or superior

propensity to reason that explains their social function. Accordingly, he does not endorse

the arguments that professional academic philosophers are the only people who can or

should think philosophically. He voices this concern with what are referred to as

“intellectuals” in an interview: “what is at issue is the idea of a specific class of

intelligence that has a role by virtue of its superior capacity.”103 He pins the source of this

kind of intellectual elitism on the tradition of philosophy popularized by Plato, arguing in

The Philosopher and His Poor that Plato’s Republic is largely meant simply to ensure that

philosophers are viewed as inherently, uniquely elite as compared to other types of people:

Philosophy cannot simply justify itself as a post within the division of labor; if it

did so, it would fall back into the democracy of the trades. Hence it must

exacerbate the argument from nature, giving it the shape of a prohibition marked on

bodies (…) There simply are bodies that cannot accommodate philosophy – bodies

marked and stigmatized by the servitude of the work for which they have been

made.104

It is argued in the Republic that philosophers are able to discern fundamental principles,

harmonize their souls, and live more virtuously than those who do not practice philosophy,

based on an alleged propensity built into the nature of certain individuals. Rancière takes

issue with the implicit elitism in this argument. While this elitism might play out in

arguments or assumptions about capacity, it also manifests in arguments related to

103. Rancière, Moments Politiques, 146.

104. Ranciere, The Philosopher and His Poor, 32.

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circumstance. We can easily see these in operation if we imagine an argument that children

cannot philosophize, or an argument that real philosophy only takes place in certain kinds

of departments (those that require a logic course of their undergraduates, for example).

While there is nothing wrong with setting up criteria, the point here is to look at the social

consequence of defending certain criteria.

Nick Hewlett argues that Rancière’s critique of philosophy shows us “it was

established philosophy and sociology that were intrinsically elitist.”105 So it may not be the

act of philosophizing or even reasoning that is under attack here, but the association of that

act with social roles (i.e. professors of philosophy). Indeed, Rancière writes, when

speaking of intellectuals, “the very idea of a class in society whose specific role is to think

is preposterous and can be conceived only because we live under a preposterous social

order.”106 The critique is aimed at the suggestion that some people should not philosophize,

and that being thoughtful about our actions is a task that can and should be delegated to

only some individuals for the sake of economic efficiency.

Rancière’s critique of the field of philosophy as a discipline challenges those in the

‘ivory tower’ to question their implicit or overt claims to have a better understanding of

things, via philosophical reasoning, than do those in other professions.107 Again, his

105. Hewlett. Badiou, Balibar, Rancière, 90. Italics my own.

106. Rancière, Moments Politiques, xiii.

107. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 28-29; Rancière, “Thinking Between

Disciplines,” 10.

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critique of philosophy, as with his critique of schooling, should be understood in terms of

his attitude toward social institutions in general. Hallward writes that:

According to Rancière, philosophy per se begins by trying to distinguish people

capable of genuine thought from others who, entirely defined by their social or

economic occupation, are presumed to lack the ability, time and leisure required for

thought.108

Hallward is referring to Rancière’s critique of the Philosopher King model, which he reads

quite literally in Plato, and which he sees replicated time and again in other philosophers.

The thread of egalitarianism that runs through Rancière’s works is in tension with

philosophers who claim to have access to a logos, or an ability to explain the world using a

special formula (reason) to which they have exclusive access (as Rancière reads Plato to

have done). As such, we must understand the second primary critique of philosophy as a

critique of method – investigated in what follows.

Method

One might ask whether Rancière is taking issue with the notion of reason or logos

as an underlying order, or with the alleged exclusive possession of this reason. Does

Rancière have a problem with the idea that there might be a reasonable order to everything,

underlying appearances in the way logos is represented in some Platonic dialogues, or does

he have a problem with the idea, as presented in the Republic, that it is philosophers in

particular who can really know and understand this reasonable order? To put the question

108. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 28.

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another way: is Rancière troubled simply by the concept of the Philosopher King, or is he

troubled by philosophy itself as presented in the Platonic dialogues?

The method of reason is one aspect of academic philosophy that Rancière attacks

because academic philosophers claim to have special knowledge of this method. In Plato’s

Republic this method is presented as dialectical, wherein one works toward reaching the

first principle of things – a more complete understanding of the form or foundation of

everything – by looking past mere material senses. From the Republic:

Dialectic is the only inquiry that travels this road, doing away with hypotheses and

proceeding to the first principle itself, so as to be secure. And when the eye of the

soul is really buried in a sort of barbaric bog, dialectic gently pulls it out and leads

it upwards.109

This method generally entails defining terms or concepts in contrast with their opposites,

and slowly crystalizing them by way of eliminating non-essential parts. This procedure of

coming to know things through the dialectic, which philosophers are alleged to be privy to

in the Republic, is what Rancière seems to be concerned about with respect to method.

It has been said of Rancière’s projects, such as his archival work on workers'

communications, that he “calls into question the protocols and practices of both philosophy

and historiography through his own participation in writing.”110 For example, Rancière

warns that when people interpret The Ignorant Schoolmaster as advocating for the

application of a method, they become rigidified and use whatever method they devise

109. Plato, The Complete Works of Plato, Edited by John. M. Cooper, translated by

G.M.A. Grube (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), Republic 533c.

110. Mark Robson, “Hearing Voices,” Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical

Theory 28, no. 1 (2005), 5.

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dogmatically. Rancière himself insists that he has neither a philosophical nor a pedagogical

method, and that he is not advocating for either. He insists that philosophers should never

fall into the trap of putting a value on one discursive practice as though it were of final and

of ultimate value, for one cannot and should not prescribe a science of emancipation.

Rancière argues that even an abstract notion such as reason imposes something on

the world: “there is no clear divide between theory and its practical application (…) All

transformation interprets, and all interpretation transforms.”111 Every kind of theory we can

construct to describe actions in the world is born out of lived experiences, and means

something different depending on the context (one example that Rancière uses is trying to

apply universal rules to the prohibition of Islamic headscarves, or ideals of democracy and

freedom used to justify military invasion.)112 There is thus no practical way of isolating

reason, nor of referring to universal concepts in order to justify actions in such a way that

everyone would agree that one is “right.” As Hallward puts it, “it is a peculiar delusion of

conventional philosophy, Rancière suggests, to presume that thought proceeds not only as

a form of dis-placement but as fully independent of place.”113 So it is not only the elitism

that comes from claims to special knowledge, but method itself that is questionable from a

111. Rancière, Moments Politiques, xii.

112. Rancière, Moments Politiques, xii.

113. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 31.

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Rancièrean perspective.114 To understand more about his concerns about elitism and

method, let us look at what he has to say about truth with regard to philosophy.

Truth

While Rancière does not always invoke the term truth when attacking traditional

philosophy, I am highlighting two instances where he does utilize the term.115 The first

quote is pertaining to the hierarchy associated with claims about truth. He writes, “If there

is a privilege of philosophy, it lies in the frankness with which it tells us that the truth

about Truth is a fiction and undoes the hierarchy just as it builds it.”116 We can conclude

from this that Rancière refrains from making claims focused on objective truth because he

believes such claims to ultimately have an elitist effect. Under attack here, of course, are

114. The obvious problem with taking issue with reason, and with insinuating that

there may be no better or worse way to use reason, is that it would make it quite difficult to

apply any of this, or to critique issues of injustice. There is an issue of consistency here: to

claim that reason has no special status would appear to be based on a kind of reason. It is

quite difficult to make such assertions without appearing contradictory, but this appears to

be the nature of the beast. To make a claim, as Socrates did, that all one knows is that one

knows nothing, is provocative and paradoxical. Clearly,Rancière is motivated, by an

interest in equality. In his effort to work towards equality, or elucidate the problems that

impede realization of equality, he makes use of paradox. In order to bring to light the way

in which political commitments are entailed by claims regarding reason and one’s access to

it, Rancière himself makes a claim about claims about reason: that they are nothing but

arbitrary configurations based on one’s political beliefs.

115. It should also be noted that there is plenty of secondary literature about

Rancière’s conception of truth. As an example, see Bingham and Biesta, Jacques

Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation.

116. Jacques Rancière, Reading Rancière, Paul Bowman and Richard Stamp, Eds.

(New York: Continuum, 2011), 15.

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essentially the Platonic forms, presented in the dialogues as supremely objective. Rancière

has stated that although philosophers often make categorical and affirmative statements, he

cannot bring himself to make such statements in earnest.117 Claims about Truth (the capital

T represents an objective, irrefutable category) can preclude the lived experiences or

challenges of others. Philosophy, for Rancière, allows us to always put into question these

allegedly objective and irrefutable truths, particularly surrounding the social impacts of

such assertions (i.e. hierarchies).

Socrates says in the Republic that the dialectic can always bring one up and out of

confused, muddled thoughts – an act that I take to be somewhat akin to Rancière’s claims

about the ability of philosophy to draw new boundaries. In Plato’s picture there is a

hierarchy whereby the dialectic allegedly allows us to draw closer to truth through repeated

steps in inquiry. The dialectical move itself is intended to challenge assumptions from the

outside, by questioning them, offering counterexamples, highlighting contradictions, and

so on. Rancière’s positive iteration of philosophy entails a similar move of critiquing from

the outside by pushing against barriers or distinctions allegedly grounded in arguments,

and by challenging the assumptions and arbitrary distinctions on which they are based.

However, Rancière’s movement is specifically not hierarchical and linear, nor is it based

on an ontological conception. This orientation corresponds with his views on politics or

democracy, where for political or democratic moments to obtain they must transpire as

117. Rancière, as quoted by Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison Ross in their article

“The Evidence of Equality and the Practice of Writing,” Jacques Rancière and the

Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical Equality. Jean-Philippe Deranty and

Alison Ross, Eds. (New York: Continuum, 2012), 3.

58

eruptions – breaks with the order of things. Plato’s picture is known for being hierarchical

insofar as the Form of the Good is analogous to the sun casting light on all earthly

existence, informing its being; Truth is at the top and false beliefs are below. Rancière, by

contrast, challenges the notion of truth in every place the word is uttered, thereby

destabilizing a model of progress.

This brings me to the second quote from Rancière that I would like to highlight as

an instance of his conception of truth, this one found in The Ignorant Schoolmaster.

Rancière writes:

Truth doesn't bring people together at all. It is not given to us. It exists

independently from us and does not submit to our piecemeal sentences. [...] But for

all that, truth is not foreign to us, and we are not exiled from its country. The

experience of veracity attaches us to its absent center; it makes us circle around its

foyer. [...] Thus, each one of us describes our parabola around the truth. No two

orbits are alike. [...] No one has a relationship to the truth if he is not on his own

orbit.118

Truth for Rancière is always fractured when we try to articulate it, which means that we

appear to be in very similar position to Truth as in Plato’s system. The difference between

Rancière’s notion of Truth and Plato’s, at least if we are on board with the common, literal

interpretation of the dialogues that he is following, is that for Rancière we are each

“orbiting around the truth,” thus precluding the possibility that there is one class of people

that is closer to it.119 Furthermore, for Rancière the truth would seem internal and

subjective rather than external, as he reads Plato’s Truth to be.

118. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 58-59.

119. To be fair, if we interpret Plato more charitably, anyone can use the dialectic

to get closer (yet never all the way to) truth. This is not Rancière’s reading of Plato,

59

The issue Rancière has with the traditional philosophical notion of truth as he finds

it in Plato, or the notion that is implied by the previously mentioned tendencies – toward

elitism and a reification of reason – is that it assumes that there are distinct parcels of

knowledge that can be apprehended, and that there are certain kinds of people or methods

that can alone come close to these parcels. As Andrew Schaap asserts, Rancière “turned

away from philosophy” because of what he felt to be its tendency either to fetishize

concepts or to fetishize praxis, and to treat concepts and praxis as separate and distinct.120

Rancière’s central focus, as Tanke points out, is to trace the “form philosophy assumes

when it founds itself by partitioning the world on the basis of supposed distinct natures.”121

Emmanuel Renault asserts that in much of his critical work, Rancière takes issue with the

attempt in political philosophy to “realize the essence of philosophy (that is, the

philosophical description of a social order grounded on a principle.)”122 Schapp argues that

in Disagreement Rancière describes philosophers like Plato as feeling “scandalized” upon

however, for he interprets the Philosopher King’s appearance in the Republic quite

literally.

120. Andrew Schaap, “Hannah Arendt and the Philosophical Repression of

Politics,” in Jacques Rancière and the Contemporary Scene: The Philosophy of Radical

Equality. Jean-Philippe Deranty and Alison Ross, Eds. (New York: Continuum, 2012),

146.

121. Tanke, Rancière, 28.

122. Emmanuel Renault, “The Many Marx of Jacques Rancière,” 175. It should be

noted that on page 186 Renault concludes by suggesting that Rancière ends up with a

“Sartrian philosophy of absolute freedom,” and “a philosophy of political freedom

grounded on the communist principle of equality.” This is one of several places wherein

Rancière’s philosophy is referred to, but this is separate from my focus on Rancière’s

conception of philosophy as such.

60

concluding that politics is actually groundless and anarchistic; Plato’s endeavor to uncover

the underlying order and find the right place for everything was fruitless, in Rancière’s

view.123 However, we know that Rancière does not want to give up on the act of

philosophizing, despite the failures of his predecessors and their unfortunate propensity to

uphold elitist orientations toward method and truth. Therefore, let us move on to the

positive threads within Rancière’s conception of philosophy to see where hope might be

found.

Rancière’s Positive Conception of Philosophy

In this section I first point out several places in the secondary literature where

Rancière’s conception of philosophy is addressed, highlighting that more work could be

done to think through his normative or positive conception of philosophy. Next, I show

how such a positive account would contrast with the critiques of philosophy I reviewed in

the previous section of this chapter. To build this positive account, I first argue that

Rancière’s alternative to the notion of truth critiqued in the previous section is creativity

and absence of a site. Next, I describe why in contrast to method critiqued in the previous

section, Rancière favors assertion. Finally, I suggest that in contrast to elitism, and quite

consistent with the aforementioned critique of inequality, Rancière advocates for

egalitarianism. Ultimately, when this chapter concludes, a Rancièrean philosophy

characterized by dissensus should have taken shape.

123. Schaap, “Hannah Arendt and the Philosophical Repression of Politics,” 146-

165.

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Context: Secondary Literature

While philosophy as a topic is abundant in the secondary literature on Rancière, it

appears that there is room to more clearly delineate the negative and positive threads that

make up Rancière’s conception of philosophy. Further, it seems that in general, secondary

literature in the fields of aesthetics, political philosophy, and philosophy tout court deal

more directly with Rancière on philosophy, while philosophers of education write more

about educationally relevant themes within his body of work. The secondary literature

either deals with Rancière’s critiques of philosophy or refers to central themes within his

work as his “philosophy”; I have not found a robust account of his metaphilosophy—that

is, his stance on philosophy itself. As such, there appears to be an opportunity to more fully

characterize what the positive threads in Rancière’s conception of philosophy might mean,

particularly if one wants to apply such a conception to a topic like philosophy in schools.

To give an example of coverage of Rancière on philosophy in the secondary

literature, Giuseppina Mecchia’s “Philosophy and Its Poor: Rancière’s Critique of

Philosophy” recounts the general argument found in The Philosopher and His Poor.

Further, Mecchia summarizes Rancière’s critique of political philosophy that appears in his

work Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy. Finally, Mecchia outlines Rancière’s

conceptual overlaps with the ideas of certain more contemporary philosophers, namely

Lyotard and Agamben, before concluding her chapter with a summary of why Rancière

disavows political philosophy (as demonstrated in his Hatred of Democracy). Her

informative essay leaves me wanting to explore the positive suggestions about philosophy

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made by Rancière, particularly because of my interest in bringing philosophy to schools.

Indeed, Mecchia helps to show the kind of philosophy Rancière does not do, but if we

want to do something with Rancière, this must be framed in the positive.124

In philosophy of education scholarship, in the edited volume on Rancière by

Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein, there is no listing in the index for philosophy – only

“philosophy in teacher education.”125 Some philosophers of education have shown an

appreciation for Rancière’s positive characterization of philosophy insofar as he represents

it as a means of challenging the boundaries of varying discourses, while others have

casually alluded to his philosophy of education without specifying exactly what it entails.

126 In Bingham and Biesta’s Jacques Rancière and in Tyson Lewis’ The Aesthetics of

Education there is no index listing for philosophy.127 My intent is not to claim that

124. With Mecchia, in the “Philosophy” section of Jacques Rancière: Key

Concepts, edited by philosopher Jean-Philippe Deranty, we also find Deranty’s chapter,

“Logical Revolts,” which summarizes Rancière’s first works that challenged assumptions

about who can be philosophical. Also included is “The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Knowledge

and Authority,” by Yves Citton, which describes The Ignorant Schoolmaster and some

later works, illuminating some of the critiques and terminology that recur in Rancière’s

works. Citton refers explicitly to “Rancière’s philosophy,” noting several concepts which

he argues are at the “core” of this philosophy. Citton, “The Ignorant Schoolmaster,” 31.

125. Masschelein and Simons, “The Hatred of Public Schooling,” 150-165.

126. Ruitenberg, “Distance and Defamiliarisation,” 428; Pelletier, “Rancière’s

Critique of Bourdieu,” 146; Pelletier, “Poetics,” 270.

127. There also appears to be a lack of analysis of Rancière’s discussion of the

Principle of Veracity, which is one way that truth is categorized in The Ignorant

Schoolmaster, the sole work in which the term is used. Neither “principle of veracity” nor

“veracity” occur in the index of Simons and Masschelin, nor in Bingham and Biesta’s

book, Jacques Rancière, nor in Tyson Lewis’ Aesthetics of Education. Lewis mentions in

passing that there have been a few efforts to connect Rancière’s ‘philosophy of education’

with specific concepts, but neither of the citations he mentions discuss explicitly

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philosophy is completely absent from the scholarship on Rancière within philosophy of

education, but rather to highlight an area where – given my intended application of this to a

comparison with CPI – this reclamation project may be of service.

Having summarized the way in which this topic is covered more overtly outside of

philosophy of education scholarship, I will now elaborate on the three concepts I present as

alternatives to the three critiques I described in the previous section. This characterization

will not be finely turned, with postulates and parameters; I am relying instead on a rough

set of themes that seem pertinent to invoking Rancière in response to the question of why

or how philosophy should be practiced in K-12 schools, and what that philosophy can or

should entail. I approach this comparison by starting first with creativity and absence of a

permanent site as a contrast to truth, moving on to assertion as a contrast to method, and

finally, to egalitarianism contrasted with elitism.

Creativity and Absence of Site

Both creativity and an absence of site serve as alternatives to the problematic

notion of truth that Rancière attributes to traditional philosophy. Steven Corcoran notes

that for Rancière, philosophy may be viewed as a “creative practice” that disrupts, in an

egalitarian fashion, “the prevailing categories governing perception and action.”128

Rancière’s philosophy of education, nor his conception of philosophy. Lewis, “Aesthetic

Regime,” 55-56. Lewis also refers to “Rancière’s own educational philosophy” yet does

not refer explicitly to any of Rancière’s positive descriptions of philosophy itself. Lewis,

“Realm of the Senses,” 286.

128. Steven Corcoran. “Editor’s Introduction.” In Jacques Rancière’s Dissensus:

On Politics and Aesthetics, 1-26. Edited and translated by Steven Corcoran. New York:

Bloomsbury, 2010, 4.

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Contrary to a drive toward discovery of truth and acquisition of knowledge, we are looking

here at a more creative, imaginary impulse that all people have.

Corcoran writes elsewhere that for Rancière, philosophy, just like politics or art, is

“displaced with regard to any pre-established site.”129 For Rancière, there is no specific

fixed site or grounding for politics, philosophy, nor for any of what we might call his

positive ideals, because establishing a site a priori means essentializing and ontologizing –

holding on to a “truth” as philosophers so wrongly do. Rancière writes:

An egalitarian practice of philosophy, as I understand it, is a practice that enacts the

aporia of foundation (…) I am aware that I am not the only person committed to

this task. What is thus the specificity of my position? It is that I refuse to ontologize

a principle of the aporia.130

In this passage, Rancière uses foundation and ontology as synonyms, each representing

essentialism: a foundation is something that determines everything, giving everything built

upon it particular constraints, while ontology is also understood as providing a foundation

(for politics, ethics, and so on).131 Aporia is used just as it is in Platonic texts, marking a

paradox, conflict, or quandary, which ultimately serves to dismantle preconceived notions,

disrupt certainty, and challenge the police order (as Rancière would call it).132 If the

foundation for everything – and of course this is being applied to the function of schooling

129. Corcoran, “Editor’s Introduction,” 22.

130. Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus,” 15.

131. Rancière, “The Thinking of Dissensus,” 14.

132. Rancière, Disagreement, ix.

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in determining where and how graduates can survive within society – is challenged, it

means that there can be no natural hierarchy, no essence that we must answer to. Turning

this challenging act into something that has a fixed method, a prescribed set of values to

uncover (i.e. a drive toward truth), or a designated cohort of practitioners (i.e. professional

philosophers) would ‘ontologize this aporia’ of philosophy.

Rancière values creativity and emergence rather than a grounded, foundational

knowledge base. Philosophy moves and changes through time, rather than being an

unmoving dialectical foundation, be it literal or figurative, of the sort he takes Plato to rely

on. In an interview in which he was asked about the meaning of philosophy, Rancière said

“I would describe philosophy as a place in motion.”133 Such a statement suggests, for

example, that philosophy need not live within academia, but could travel – say, to K-12

schools, to the streets, to the corner store. Philosophy is not stuck, and thus must be

present, alive, active, changing. Convergent with this depiction of philosophy itself as

figuring transiently in space and time, Samuel Chambers writes that all of Rancière’s work

contains a “crucial temporal dimension.”134 Commentators such as Kristin Ross, Pelletier,

Masschelein, and Simons have also focused on this temporal component of Rancière’s

work.135 Rancière explicitly critiques a “certain temporality” that is implied in traditional

133. Rancière, “Our police order: what can be said, seen, and done: An Interview

with Jacques Ranciere,” Le Monde diplomatique, (Oslo) 8 November 2006.

134. Samuel Chambers, The Lessons of Rancière (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2013), 31.

135. Kristin Ross, “Historicizing Untimeliness,” In Gabriel Rockhill and Philip

Watts (eds.), Jacques Rancière: History, Politics, Aesthetics (Durham: Duke University

Press, 2009), 24; Rancière, “Dissenting Words,” 123.

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pedagogical logic, where the goal is for the student to make progress on a path.136 He also

explains his notion of a political ‘moment’ as ‘intervening’ in the more predetermined,

sanctioned forms of government, in his preface to the book (a collection of his interviews)

named precisely for this ideal, Moments Politiques: Interventions 1977-2009.137 Within

Rancière’s alternative philosophical temporality, a “place in motion,” we are not focused

on a linear, fixed developmental pattern, but are instead nurturing emergence and presence.

As such, and as we will see below, assertion as an alternative to a rigid method fits quite

well.

Assertion

There are several authors from outside the philosophy of education field who have

referred to Rancière’s philosophical method or style. For example, Oliver Davis refers to

Rancière’s philosophical style as declarative or assertoric rather than explanatory.138 While

explanatory logic and the explanatory structure of schools were referenced in Chapter

Two, this notion comes up again when conceiving of Rancière and philosophy generally.

Explanatory acts, or acts of explication, involve those with prestige, ‘intelligence’, and

authority allegedly distributing knowledge, thereby implicitly ‘explaining’ that the

136. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 4.

137. Rancière, Moments Politiques, vii-xiii.

138. Oliver Davis, Jacques Rancière, ix, x.

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distribution of social roles is due to a disparity of intelligences.139 On the contrary, to assert

is to include in all statements a kind of unspoken disclaimer that one ought to interpret

such statements in light of a host of other considerations and that one ought not take such

statements as an evaluation of the interlocutors.

Rancière suggests that we might consider a ‘method of equality’ to be a ‘poetics of

knowledges’ or a ‘politics of knowledge,’ wherein we are vigilant about the power and

arbitrariness of discursive thought; we can be skeptical about norms derived from alleged

essentialist evidence, because all people are equal in their capacity to use language and

meaning.140 He writes,

philosophy says to those knowledges [savoir] who are certain of their

methods: methods are recounted stories. This does not mean that they are null

and void. It means that they are weapons in a war; they are not tools which

facilitate the examination of a territory but weapons which serve to establish

its always uncertain boundary.141

The operative word here may in fact be ‘certain.’ In other words, Rancière is not claiming

to be an authority, and in cases where he offers an evaluative judgment, he intends to hold

his evaluation humbly. All statements should be admittedly contingent for a philosopher.

Boundaries are relevant here as well. Rancière urges us to question claims pertaining to

139. In the section of The Ignorant Schoolmaster in which he introduces the

conception of explication, Rancière writes “explication is the myth of pedagogy,” because

traditional teaching and learning are predicated on the notion that the teacher has

knowledge that needs to be explained or explicated for the student who lacks knowledge.

The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 6.

140. Rancière, “Thinking Between Disciplines,” 11-12; Pelletier, “Poetics,” 273-

274.

141. Rancière, “Thinking Between Disciplines,” 11.

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certain divisions between, say, academic disciplines, or conceptions of people. While at

one time interdisciplinary work was more theoretical, there are now institutes that bring

together ethicists and bioengineers. While at one time it was not a consideration at the

institutional level, many colleges and universities now give special attention to First

Generation students. Philosophy, for Rancière, happens in those moments where assertions

are made – say, that being the first in your family to pursue a bachelor’s degree poses

unique challenges and fosters important perspectives, or that we ought to think about the

moral impacts of gene splicing. These change the landscape of our lived and conceptual

experience, and are crucial philosophically.

Assertions like this disrupt value schemas, challenging assumptions and practices

reflective of the way the police order is parsed. When an assertion is made, for Rancière, it

presupposes – though he does not use the language – an assumption of rights on behalf of

the speaker. Assertions presuppose a capacity to understand, thus entailing the assumption

of equality of intelligence Rancière promotes. Assertion is contrasted to method because it

is not a simple negation of existing forms or norms; assertion is not predictable, nor

contingent on existing binaries.

Egalitarianism

As should already be readily apparent, Rancière’s critique of the field of

philosophy challenges academics, himself included, to be skeptical about any of their

claims to having a better understanding of things, via philosophical reasoning, than do

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those in other professions.142 He contends that philosophy inherently challenges any

narratives that suggest that there is an inequality among intelligences: “what the

philosopher declares (...) is that inequality is an artifice, a story which is imposed.”143

Removing adherence to essentialism (as he has done by advocating for creativity) is

egalitarian insofar as it verifies that society itself is constructed through arbitrary roles. His

insistence, once again, is that philosophers should not assume that equality is an end that

can be achieved via the state or some alternative to it. Rather, equality is continually

enacted through our assumptions.

To say that philosophy itself is egalitarian is to say that philosophy allows us to see

through arbitrariness and to question conventions, constructs, and assumptions. To say that

philosophy is egalitarian is to highlight that all participants are equally privy to this feature

of reality. This empowers all and undermines any pretense that there are only certain

people who can access truth. Replacing elitism with egalitarianism is a crucial component

of Rancière’s positive view of philosophy. He writes:

Classically, philosophy has been considered a sort of super-discipline which

reflects on the methods of the human and social sciences, or which provides them

with their foundation. Thus a hierarchical order is established in the universe of

discourse. Of course these sciences can object to this status, treat it as an illusion

and pose itself as the true knowledge of philosophical illusion. This is another

hierarchy, another way of putting discourses in their place. But there is a third way

of proceeding, which seizes the moment in which the philosophical pretension to

found the order of discourse is reversed, becoming the declaration, in the

egalitarian language of the narrative, of the arbitrary nature of this order.144

142. Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 28-29; Rancière, “Thinking Between

Disciplines,” 10.

143. Rancière, “Thinking Between Disciplines,” 8.

144. Jacques Rancière, “Thinking Between The Disciplines,” 10.

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It is an ungrounding that philosophy fosters, but only when one assumes an equality of

intelligences, when one recognizes the universal contingency of all discursive utterances.

The way we speak about the world and organize into social roles could be otherwise, and

indeed we have evidence of this when looking across history and at the present moment,

observing our myriad languages and ways of life. For example, in some cultures, people

with mental health conditions are scorned or left to fend for themselves, while in others

they are deemed prophetic and wise, or are granted access to the health care that they need.

Philosophy – in the third way that Rancière describes above, and which I refer to as the

positive account – shows us that our attempts to attach our understanding of arbitrary

social constructions to a concept of truth need to be challenged. In my reading, his work

ultimately shows us that there is an assumption of some kind underlying everything, and

that such assumptions betray a value system that can be more or less egalitarian.145

In academia there is often conversation about the importance of the humanities, and

whether they are a kind of additive discipline that comes after the sciences, or whether

science is informed by the humanities. Philosophers within this debate often zero in on

philosophy as the driving force behind scientific discovery and application of scientific

145. I appreciate this line of reasoning, in which we highlight the kind of

assumption necessary for all things to operate. A similar argument, using the notion of

faith, is found in Leo Tolstoy: “If a man lives he believes in something. If he did not

believe that one must live for something, he would not live. If he does not see and

recognize the illusory nature of the finite, he believes in the finite; if he understands the

illusory nature of the finite, he must believe in the infinite. Without faith he cannot live.”

Leo Tolstoy, A Confession. Translated by Alymer Maude. New York: Dover (2005), 47.

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breakthroughs (e.g. the morality behind robots replacing humans in the workforce).

Rancière brackets this debate, arguing that philosophy should not position itself as

authoritative. Instead, philosophy should be more modest, because it is fundamentally

egalitarian, challenging hierarchies altogether.146 Where you fall on the side of stipulating

the power of philosophy or reason and what that entails may say more about your motives

than any alleged truth of the matter.

Conclusion

In this chapter I have categorized Rancière’s central critiques of philosophy as

pertaining to elitism, method, and truth. His respective alternatives include egalitarianism,

assertion, and creativity or sitelessness. Dissensus, as outlined in Chapter Two, is a helpful

term for generally conceiving of the more positive act of philosophizing that emerges from

Rancière’s critiques and alternatives. Despite his resistance to grounding or locating

philosophy, opting instead for an emergent or fluid conception, Rancière insists on a

constant heterogeneity, a meeting of worlds. 147 This obtains regardless of philosophy,

because it is a consequence of the equality of intelligence. However, philosophy points us

to the fact that we are necessarily unable to reach consensus due to the barriers of

perspective and place, confined as we are to our respective ‘worlds.’ Philosophy celebrates

dissensus. As Rancière writes:

146. On the modesty that philosophy should adopt, see Rancière, Disagreement,

136.

147. On heterogeneity: Rancière “Against an Ebbing Tide,” 246.

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it is possible to define a certain dissensual practice of philosophy as an activity of

de-classification that undermines all policing of domains and formulas. It does so

not for the sole pleasure of deconstructing the master's discourse, but in order to

think the lines according to which boundaries and passages are constructed,

according to which they are conceivable and modifiable. This critical practice of

philosophy is an inseparably egalitarian, or anarchistic, practice, since it considers

arguments, narratives, testimonies, investigations and metaphors all as the equal

inventions of a common capacity in a common language. Engaging in critique of

the instituted divisions, then, paves the way for renewing our interrogations into

what we are able to think and do.148

This view of philosophy as a disruptive practice is Rancière’s response to his worries about

elitism, method, and truth. It is egalitarian rather than elitist, assertive rather than

methodological, and rests on the creativity of each person rather than on an objective

notion of truth. To consider how this could ever transpire in a school, given his issues with

schooling as covered I in Chapter Two, I move in the next chapter to looking at a specific

pedagogy that I argue aligns quite well with Rancière’s critiques and positive conceptions

of philosophy. In the following chapter I compare Rancière with the theory and practice of

community of philosophical inquiry, in an attempt to find out if and how his practice of

philosophy may can be relevant in schools, despite the inherent problems associated with

schooling itself.

148. Rancière, Dissensus, 218.

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CHAPTER FOUR

RANCIÈRE AND

COMMUNITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY

In the preceding chapters I introduced Rancière’s views on schooling and on

philosophy, distinguishing between his critiques and his alternatives for each. Regarding

schooling, we are left with a recognition of the inherent problems with schools but are

encouraged to find ways that allow for the benefits of dissensus, whenever and wherever it

occurs in schools. With respect to philosophy, we come away from the last chapter with

reasons to be cautious of academic philosophy, but also to be hopeful that philosophy in

schools can enhance or support dissensus.

I would now like to introduce community of philosophical inquiry (CPI) as one

kind of dissensual, philosophical practice in schools, making the case that CPI is notably

consistent with the critiques and norms surrounding schooling and philosophy that I have

gleaned from Rancière. What I argue in this chapter is that Rancière’s positive conception

of philosophy both supports the efforts to introduce CPI into K-12 schools and cautions us

against the idea that this will create perfect schools. Enacting Rancière’s positive

conception of philosophy in schools may not even be possible. Within the secondary

literature on Rancière, there has yet to be work done on how his positive conception of

philosophy can be applied to efforts to bring philosophy to schools. Within the secondary

CPI literature there has yet to be an account of how Rancière’s critiques of both schooling

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and philosophy align with and may inform the principles and application of CPI. It is my

hope that my efforts will contribute to each of these areas.149

In the “Schooling” section of this chapter I go over some ways that Rancière’s

views on schooling as covered in Chapter Two correspond with the critiques and solutions

to schooling that are implied in or inherent to CPI. Moving on to the “Philosophy” section

of this chapter, I offer a comparison between Rancière’s views of traditional philosophy as

described in Chapter Three and the critiques of philosophy and alternative norms implied

or explicit in CPI. I do not organize these sections by the compartmentalization of terms I

followed in Chapters Two and Three, which helped to lay the foundation for this

comparison. Instead, much in the same manner as Rancière himself, I weave together

themes and terms in order to convey one way in which the affinity between CPI and

Rancière can be represented. This approach of thinking through the connections between

CPI and Rancière also allows me to seamlessly introduce adjacent topics found within CPI

that did not arise in the chapters strictly devoted Rancière, so as to set up for the following

chapter, which thinks through applying Rancière and CPI to existing and new schools.

Prior to delving into the two main sections of this chapter, I offer a gloss on exactly what

CPI entails as well as some historical context for the practice.

149. It may go without saying, but Rancière himself has not written about CPI, and

I would wager that he has not heard of it.

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Context: The History and Practice of Community of Philosophical Inquiry

To give some context for this chapter, the CPI model I focus on was originally

articulated by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp, and has been used in schools and

programs within the U.S. for over forty years now.150 It is a subset of the larger philosophy

for/with children and philosophy in schools movement.151 Though this chapter should

make apparent why I have chosen this particular model as a kind of case study for thinking

through Rancière’s critiques and norms surrounding schooling and philosophy, I will still

offer this disclaimer: there are many other arguments and practices within philosophy in

schools that are worth considering in light of Rancière, but I am limiting my focus for the

purpose of this dissertation. Many practitioners of philosophy in schools do great work

without ever making use of the CPI model. There are entire schools that may indeed be

attractive alternatives to traditional public schools, and that might fit with Rancière’s

150. The history of the use of community of philosophical inquiry in schools is

presented well in Maughn Rollins Gregory and David Granger, “Introduction: John Dewey

on Philosophy and Childhood,” Education and Culture 28, no. 2 (2012): 1-25. It should

also be noted that Matthew Lipman credited Ann Margaret Sharp with “reconstructing the

philosophical notion of community of inquiry into a model of educational practice.” See

Maughn Rollins Gregory and Megan Jane Laverty, 1-17 “Introduction” in In Community of

Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp: Childhood, Philosophy and Education (New York:

Routledge, 2018), 1.

151. As explained by Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris, the original reason that a

distinction was made between philosophy “for” and philosophy “with” children was

because when Karin Murris developed a new way of using picture books as prompts for

philosophy in elementary schools, Lipman asked her to distinguish it from the method he

was already writing about. See Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris, “An Epistemological

Shift in Teacher Education through Philosophy with Children.” In Philosophy for Children

in Transition: Problems and Prospects, 117-136. Edited by Nancy Vansieleghem and

David Kennedy. Walden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 132.

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critiques and norms, but that do not make use of any notion of philosophy in their structure

nor pedagogy. There are also philosophers who offer critiques of philosophy akin to

Rancière’s, who again, for the purposes of this specific project, I am not exploring. In sum,

the focus on Rancière and CPI is a way to zero in on some of my own questions about

philosophy and schools, and in no way is meant to discredit others who have considered or

applied similar ideas in different contexts. I am not arguing that CPI is the only logical

application of Rancière’s views in the context of schooling.

CPI is a central practice for many facilitators of philosophy for children, or those

who bring philosophy to K-12 schools.152 The practice can be applied at the college or

university level as well, but I am looking at the K-12 level because in the U.S. this level of

schooling is compulsory, making it problematic from the Rancièrian perspective.153 The

method follows core elements as rearticulated by Lipman and summarized by Gregory as

such: a text is shared; students raise questions generated by the reading of this text and

plan the order in which to collectively go about trying to answering them; students engage

152. Regarding the centrality of community of philosophical inquiry in philosophy

for children implementation see Maughn Rollins Gregory, “Precollege Philosophy

Education: What Can It Be? The IAPC Model,” in Philosophy in Schools, An Introduction

for Philosophers and Teachers, 69-85. Edited by Sara Goering, Nicholas J. Shudak, and

Thomas E. Wartenberg. New York: Routledge, 2013, 73.

153. For an example of how community of philosophical inquiry can be

implemented and assessed at the college or university level see Maughn Rollins Gregory

and Megan Jane Laverty, “Evaluating Classroom Dialogue: Reconciling internal and

external accountability,” in Theory and Research in Education 5, no. 3 (2007): 281-310. I

also had the opportunity to implement the practice in three undergraduate philosophy

classes I taught at Hofstra University in 2015, and was able to share reflections on the

experience as part of the 2017 American Philosophical Association Teaching Hub.

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in a CPI dialogue on the questions; the facilitator introduces activities that revolve around

the relevant philosophical topics; and finally, there is some form of reflection on the

practice.154 While there are variations of how CPI is used, the model I am working with

here is based on what I learned while attending the Montclair State University Institute for

the Advancement of Philosophy for Children 2013 Summer Residential Workshop.155

When formulating the questions at the start of the inquiry session, there is typically

quite a bit of work on the part of the facilitator to help ensure that the questions are

sufficiently philosophical. To give an example, the class might read a story about a woman

who decided to protest outside of a factory farm. A student could pose a question like “did

the farm owner know her before she decided to protest?” This would be an empirical

question, and one that either could not be answered within the circle, or one that could

simply be answered by gathering more facts; this would not be a philosophical question.

A philosophical question – the only kind a CPI should try to answer – is one that

members can disagree about, and can try to answer within the circle without relying on

experts, and is not empirical. In the Handbook, James Heinegg relays Joe Oyler’s four

common kinds of philosophical questions: they are questions about meaning, questions

about right and wrong, questions about how we can know things, and questions about

reality.156 Questions like these embody underlying philosophical concepts that Laurance

154. Gregory, “Precollege Philosophy Education,” 72.

155. Maughn Rollins Gregory, Philosophy for Children Practitioner Handbook.

Montclair: Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, 2008, 11-12; 47.

156. James Heinegg, “Introduction,” in Philosophy for Children Practitioner

Handbook. Montclair: Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, 2008, 88.

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Splitter and Ann Sharp characterize as being common to the experiences of all inquirers,

central to how we understand our experiences, and contestable in terms of how we define

them.157 If we are to return to the example involving the story of the woman protesting the

factory farm, the group might instead formulate a question like “are there conditions that

make killing morally acceptable?” The group might thus need to grapple with the concept

of morality during their inquiry session.

One aspect of starting a CPI session that often takes some time is the selection of

the question or questions that the group should attempt to answer. Gregory’s summary of

CPI protocol mentions that students plan the order in which they would like to try to

answer various questions. What this entails is writing the proposed questions on the board

and voting on which question students are most interested in, generating relevant sub-

questions of the chosen question as needed. Generally speaking, the questions need to be

crystalized down to their philosophical core before they are all voted on, but it can be done

in the opposite order as well. As such, sometimes the voting takes time, but clarifying the

question that was voted on takes even longer. The process, rather than expedient results,

products, or answers is key here.158

As made apparent in the previous chapter, Rancière may not be comfortable with

formalizing any kind of method. As such, insisting on certain conditions, such as the

formation of philosophical questions, might seem too methodological. Structurally

157. Laurance Splitter and Ann Margaret Sharp, Teaching for Better Thinking: The

Classroom Community of Inquiry (Melbourne: ACER, 1995), 130.

158. This is notably what would traditionally be referred to as a very democratic

practice.

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democratic practices should also be viewed with a suspicious eye, according to Rancière,

though it is not apparent that he would object to mere voting on a question with a K-12

classroom. I will weave my responses to some such worries throughout this chapter.

Having given a general overview of CPI, I now move on to some critiques and norms

surrounding schooling, found within the practice of CPI in order to consider in more detail

how these correspond with those of Rancière.

Schooling

This section addresses the key educational themes I covered in Chapter Two. As a

reminder, there I described Rancière’s critiques of inequality and stultification, showing

how these inspire his normative assumption of equality of intelligence. Also, I described

Rancière’s critiques of truth and explanation, contrasted with his norm of the belief in the

separation between language and truth. Finally, I described his critique of progress,

contrasted with the value of dissensus. In this section my goal is to suggest ways in which

CPI is sympathetic to these critiques and norms of schooling.

Inequality and stultification are of concern to both Rancière and proponents of CPI,

although the latter do not use either term. As covered in Chapter Two, we can distinguish

between schooling on the one hand and education, or learning, on the other. In Rancière’s

terminology, education is seen as something positive, while schooling is problematic.159

Education and learning appear to be exempt from the radical suspicion with which

159. Bingham, “Settling No Conflict;” Mercieca, “Initiating,” 410; Mercieca and

Mercieca, “How Early,” 852-853; Säfström, “Rethinking,” 207-208.

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Rancière argues we should regard schools, which are institutions designed to recognize and

sort intelligence and capacity. Rancière poses us with the challenge, as Caroline Pelletier

writes, “to suspend the whole system of recognition, and the perverse satisfaction that it

affords.”160 Again, Rancière condemns those who intend to use schools to produce

equality, much in the same way that he condemns those philosophers who propose that

they can order society with their knowledge. Rancière does not believe that any social

institutions can legitimately produce harmony or consensus. Indeed, such an occurrence

would be troubling from Rancière’s perspective. The social order that schools, formal

government, and all institutions comprise, is based on what Rancière refers to “sheer

contingency.”161 All social roles could be otherwise, but we have decided on these

hierarchies and specializations to function as a society. It is key for Rancière that all

hierarchies are only possible because of an “ultimate anarchy” on which they all rest; all

social roles are possible only because there is a primordial equality that exists among all

humans.162

CPI directly challenges the hierarchy and inequality in a traditional classroom,

where the teacher has knowledge and must find out which of her students are also

knowledgeable.163 By making the development of questions a group activity with no

160. Pelletier, “No Time,” 113.

161. Rancière, Disagreement, 16.

162. Rancière, Disagreement, 16.

163. Laurance J. Splitter, “Educational Reform through Philosophy for Children,”

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 7, no. 2, 34.

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specific outcome or educative endgame, CPI is less about assessing individual students and

more about the egalitarian assessment of the community itself. This is a different kind of

paradigm from schooling where students are individually evaluated based on their

apprehension of certain bits of knowledge. A facilitator in an inquiry session does not

explain concepts to students but joins in reasoning them through with the group; she need

not be an expert.164 Indeed, the facilitator is often simply following and commenting on the

dynamics of the collective dialogue, rather than engaging with content.165 As such, CPI

avoids explanation and its consequent stultification.

We might say that there is the requirement that every participant understand the

different dialogical moves or the parameters of the inquiry; as such, there is some initial

explanation of these moves and parameters that takes place. However, there is a built-in

dimension whereby CPI forecloses on the possibility of stultification: the goal is always for

the students themselves to be able to self-facilitate, either simply by being or becoming

metacognitively self-aware as an inquiring group such that no individual facilitator is

needed, or by having individual students take turns as facilitator. As Thomas Jackson

explains, “in a mature community, the teacher/facilitator will be a coequal

facilitator/participant,” because each member of the community will naturally use the

164. Splitter, “Educational Reform,” 50-51.

165. Megan Laverty, “Dialogue as philosophical inquiry in the teaching of

tolerance and sympathy,” Learning Inquiry 1, no. 2 (2007): 128.

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protocols of dialogue within the community.166 Analogously to the ignorant schoolmaster

for Rancière, some argue that the CPI facilitator is meant to be self-effacing, purposely

distancing herself from traditional teacher authority and instead present as an inquirer

among inquirers (her students).167 Rancière’s critique of inequality and stultification are in

line with CPI’s avoidance of a traditional teacher authority and the typical emphasis on

atomic individuals as retainers of knowledge.

The focus on a common text is a practice in both a CPI and in the practice called

universal teaching that Rancière uses as an examplary model in the Ignorant

Schoolmaster.168 For CPI and universal teaching, the common text is meant to be a

starting-off point for something other than transmission. While the facilitator in a CPI does

not necessarily draw the class back to the common text, she will direct the group back to

the original question of concern in the moment if necessary (it is perfectly acceptable for

166. Thomas Jackson, “Philosophical Rules of Engagement,” in Philosophy in

Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and Teachers, 99-109. Edited by Sara Goering,

Nicholas J. Shudak, and Thomas E. Wartenberg (New York: Routledge, 2013), 108.

167. Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 3, and David Kennedy, “Practicing

philosophy of childhood: Teaching in the (r)evolutionary mode,” Journal of Philosophy of

Schools 2, no. 1 (2015): 6, 9-10, 15-16.

168. In The Ignorant Schoolmaster Rancière called Jacotot’s pedagogy universal

teaching. Since in this chapter we are looking at the more theoretical underpinnings of

Rancière’s take on schooling as it aligns with CPI, it is not important to differentiate

between Rancière and Jacotot.

83

an inquiry to end up as a pursuit of unforeseen concepts or questions generated once the

attempt at answering the original question is underway.)169

The common text is meant to be a shared ground.170 Just as is stipulated for a CPI

stimulus, an emancipatory experience under universal teaching requires that one is not told

how to interpret a text.171 Pedagogically, the shared text in both universal teaching and CPI

displaces the traditional hierarchy associated with knowledge. The hierarchies here are

slightly different because universal teaching treats knowledge as something of an object

that we can still somewhat apprehend, with the dangerous hierarchy being that between

student and teacher where the teacher is assumed to have the knowledge. A CPI also

challenges the notion that the teacher has the knowledge, but it is further contesting

knowledge itself, treating it the public process rather than the result as the most objective

thing (i.e. the object of knowledge).172

169. There are whole articles about the details of the process of inquiry, the

importance (or not) of returning to the original text or question, and more. However, for

the sake of this project, I am offering a gloss of the issue.

170. On the importance that these shared texts be relevant to the communities in

which they are used -- which highlights the need for CPI to be a truly shared experience --

see Lena Greene, “Education for Democracy: Using the Classroom Community of

Philosophical Inquiry to Develop Habits of Reflective Judgment in South African

Schools,” Thinking Skills and Creativity 4 (2009): 178–184.

171. Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 220, 222.

172. Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 8.

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The Rancièrian assumption of equality of intelligence is more or less consistent

with principles of CPI.173 The very structure of a CPI involves all community participants

in the active search for answers, development of questions, and reflection. As Nadia and

David Kennedy put it, CPI entails distributed intelligence and distributed agency, whereby

there is no locus of either, but they are equal among all parties.174 David Kennedy

elsewhere writes that “in the event of philosophy, life and language take on a new,

problematic relationship, and the aporias it invokes give intimations of an ungraspable

whole.”175 Members of the community are de facto valuable, with valuable perspectives

and lines of reasoning that can contribute to collective knowledge – assuming that there is

no breach in the expectations of community life. If a CPI session is practiced in the ideal

way, all students are equal – even with the teacher.176 An ignorant schoolmaster assumes

173. An allusion to this can be found in Matt Charles, “Philosophy for children,”

Radical Philosophy 170 (2011): 36-45; 43.

174. David Kennedy and Nadia Kennedy, “Community of Philosophical Inquiry as

a Discursive Structure, and its Role in School Curriculum Design,” Journal of Philosophy

of Education 45, no. 2 (2011): 269. David Kennedy further describes the distribution of

control in CPI in David Kennedy, “The Role of a Facilitator in a Community of

Philosophical Inquiry,” Metaphilosophy 35, no. 5 (2004): 756-761.

175. David Kennedy, “Fools, Young Children and Philosophy,” in Thinking: The

Journal of Philosophy for Children 8, no. 4: 2-6; 5.

176. Equal distribution of power of course ultimately rests on the teacher being

able to relinquish power – as pointed out in Gilbert Burgh and Mor Yorshansky.

“Communities of Inquiry: Politics, power and group Dynamics.” Educational Philosophy

and Theory 43, no. 5 (2011): 436-452. It has been noted by Nathan Brubaker that equality

in a community of philosophical inquiry is somewhat of an ideal and has not necessarily

been shown empirically. That being said, teachers who engage in this practice “foster a

pedagogical vision that is fundamentally democratic, equitable, and nurturing.” See Nathan

Brubaker, “Negotiating authority through cultivating a classroom community of Inquiry.”

Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012): 240-250. Quote is on page 248. It should also

85

equality and guides her students with her will through the space of possibility rather than

toward a set end or value.177 Not only is this type of improvisation supported by CPI

scholarship, but it has also been argued that such communities can thereby protect against

“the power of official knowledge” and can thus liberalize the curriculum.178

Both Rancière and CPI assume in a broad sense that everyone equally has a

connection to truth – that no one has a special relationship to truth, correctness, or

legitimacy, but that we each have a will that is a source of both individual and collective

strength. CPI advocates do not necessarily agree on whether truth is or should be the goal

in inquiry or in life, nor do they agree on whether truth exists. The implication of engaging

in dialogue as the means of answering questions is that participants have a role in the

process, rather than merely following the procedure of seeking answers via consultation

with experts. There is value in the process itself. As Karel L. van der Leeuw writes,

“Philosophical dialogue is a specific attempt to live in a common reality with other rational

be noted that there is excellent critique about whether or not literature and programming

around community of philosophical inquiry does a good job of contributing to an equal

society overall, particularly with respect to the lack of diversity in the authors of stimulus

material for inquiry sessions; there is concern that practitioners are operating in a kind of

gated community of white privilege. This critique can be found in Darren Chetty, “The

Elephant in the Room: Picturebooks, Philosophy for Children and Racism.” childhood &

philosophy 10, no. 19 (2014): 11-31.

177. Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator,” 277; Lewis, “Aesthetic Regime,” 63.

178. Walter Omar Kohan, Marina Santi and Jason Thomas Wozniak. “Philosophy

for teachers: between ignorance, invention and improvisation.” In The Routledge

International Handbook of Philosophy for Children, 253-259. Edited by Maughn Rollins

Gregory, Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris (New York: Routledge, 2017), 257.

86

beings; it is a practice that serves no other purpose.”179 The explicator tries to reason about

the will, quantify it, qualify it, and order it – perhaps in desire for certainty and control. For

Rancière, it is precisely at that point where we must be wary, and where we need to trust in

that which we cannot control.180 Indeed, by placing trust in students to use their capacities

to decide what they want to think and how they want to think it, we may be pleasantly

surprised by the emergence of previously unimagined ways of being.181

This same kind of trust is invoked in the principle of following the inquiry where it

leads within CPI, and by incorporating relevant perspectives from the group. For example,

any group member can introduce a counter example from their own lives, or dispute the

importance of a question based on whether or not it feels important to them. Lipman

argues that when facilitators draw on their own experience or the experiences of the

students, this contributes to overall peace in the larger community.182 The dialogue may

cause some unease, some disequilibrium, as statements and questions are problematized

and challenged.183 Nonetheless, we can trust in the process of dialogue.

179. Karel L. van der Leeuw: “Philosophical Dialogue and the Search for Truth” in

Thinking: the Journal of Philosophy for Children 17, no. 3 (2005), 23.

180. As Rancière writes, when referring to his more normative conception of

democracy rather than the formal type he critiques, “the test of democracy must ever be in

democracy’s own image: versatile, sporadic – and founded on trust.” Rancière, On the

Shores of Politics, 61.

181. Yusef Waghid and Nuraan Davids “On the (Im)possibility of Democratic

Citizenship Education in the Arab and Muslim World,” Studies in Philosophy and

Education (2014): 351.

182. Matthew Lipman, Thinking in Education, 2nd Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2003), 108-109.

183. Lipman, Thinking in Education, 87.

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Recognizing multiple perspectives in a CPI is very important, but this should not be

mistaken for relativism, for the objectivity of this relational pedagogy lies in a necessary

joint recognition of one’s biases and perspectival limitations, as well as a desire to grapple

with ambiguities.184 This notion of relational pedagogy has some similarity to Rancière’s

notion of veracity, wherein we all have truth within us that cannot directly be expressed

through language. We reason together when we try to make ourselves (and our ‘truths’)

understood. Rancière writes:

Reason begins when discourses organized with the goal of being right cease, begins

where equality is recognized: not an equality decreed by law or force, not a

passively received equality, but an equality in act, verified, at each step by those

marchers who, in their constant attention to themselves and in their endless

revolving around the truth, find the right sentences to make themselves understood

by others.185

The truth described here is not something that is outside and able to be found or

discovered, and it is not something that can finally be articulated if only it is described or

defined in the right way. In fact, such a notion of truth could allow for someone to be

“right,” when for Rancière, it is unreasonable to even have such a goal. Discourse, for

184. Vivien Linington, Lorayne Excelle, and Karin Murris, “Education For

Participatory Democracy: A Grade R Perspective,” Perspectives In Education 29, no. 1

(2011): 36-45, 40-41; Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 7; Megan Laverty,

“Dialogue as philosophical inquiry in the teaching of tolerance and sympathy,” Learning

Inquiry 1, no. 2 (2007): 125; Nadia Kennedy and David Kennedy , “Community of

Philosophical Inquiry as a Discursive Structure, and its Role in School Curriculum

Design,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45, no. 2 (2011): 269.

185. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 72.

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Rancière and for CPI, is productive to the extent that it respects what we share as well as

our inherent difference. Megan Laverty describes this seeming paradox:

Dialogical philosophical inquiry is premised on a condition of universal human

sameness. It is constituted in the recognition that individuals are defined in

relationship to their ongoing engagement with concepts, as conditions for the

possibility of meaning. (…) Dialogical philosophical inquiry is also premised on

our irrevocable differences, the contingent and significant nature of these

differences, and our failure to communicate effectively. We rely on one another to

verify our conceptual understanding, and yet, the possibilities for such a conceptual

understanding rely on our responsiveness to others in our relationships with

them.186

We each have our own perspective and relation to the truth. Our ability to discourse or

reason together is predicated on there being a limitation to what we can jointly determine

to be right or true. In a CPI we can surely disregard invalid inferences, unclear definitions,

and so on, but there will never be a conclusion reached that entirely discounts the felt

experience or perspective of one or more community members.187

Rancière encourages teachers not to assert possession of knowledge, but instead to

be authority figures that direct students down the path of exercising their own pre-existing

186. Megan Laverty, “Dialogue as philosophical inquiry in the teaching of

tolerance and sympathy,” Learning Inquiry 1 (2007): 125–132; 131.

187. As David Kennedy points out, Charles S. Peirce suggests that truth is

infinitely deferred insofar as it is what the community eventually (if ever) decides on. It is

to Peirce that we owe the original notion of community of inquiry. David Kennedy,

“Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy.” Metaphilosophy 30, no. 4

(1999): 344. Kennedy cites Charles S. Peirce. “Critical Review of Berkeley’s Idealism.” In

Selected Writings, edited by P. P. Wiener. New York: Dover (1958): 81-83. For a

description of Peirce on community of inquiry see Michael J. Pardales and Mark Girod,

“Community of philosophical inquiry: Its Past And Present Future,” Educational

Philosophy & Theory 38, no. 3 (2006): 299-309.

89

capacities, or their will.188 Universal teaching involves, as Lewis puts it, a shift from

intelligence to will, and certainly requires seeing a distinction between intelligence and

will.189 There is no predestined object of knowledge that must be willed; it is the

recognition of will itself. In this way, an ignorant schoolmaster can “teach” what they do

not know, encouraging their students to make an effort toward their goals. An example of

this that ought to be relatable for all parents is helping your child do their homework: you

do not need to know the content to encourage your child, check that they are on task,

assess whether they are engaged with what they have done, and so on. Interestingly,

employers do the same thing by having employees report on their progress on some

technical aspect of their jobs that the bosses would not themselves know how to do. With

Rancière, this is getting at the fact that knowledge of the content has little to do with the

relationship of one will to another. A CPI facilitator, as mentioned previously, is “self-

effacing”: she/he will not necessarily contribute content, but instead remark on connections

being made, definitions that are being formed, etc. The facilitator helps with form, not

content, encouraging the will of her/his students.

Another commonality between Rancière’s work and that of some CPI scholars is

evidenced by their respective discussions of progress and development. For Rancière,

188. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 47; Nancy Vanseileghem,

“Philosophy with Children as an Exercise in Parrhesia: An Account of a Philosophical

Experiment with Children in Cambodia.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45 (2011);

Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 27-28.

189. Lewis, Aesthetics of Education, 16; Ruitenberg, “Art, Politics,” 221; Kohan,

“Childhood,” 351.

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when schools operate under the pretense of helping people achieve academically despite

alleged “intellectual deficiencies,” schools only further contribute to the idea that learning

is contingent on recognition of inferiority and subsequent growth, development, or

progress.190 Further, having pre-determined ends for a school ignores the ambiguity and

uncertainty of its potential; allowing participants to truly get something meaningful out of

school requires room for their uniqueness.191 Just as Rancière critiques pedagogies that

assume a linear development model, wherein progress and development are explained by

the people and the institutions with the alleged knowledge, so too do CPI practitioners

possess skepticism toward pedagogies that treat children as adults in training.192 Linear

pedagogy itself presupposes an ending or at least a trajectory.

A number of authors within the CPI literature have argued for the incongruity of

CPI principles and schooling, and have emphasized the difficulty of accommodating the

current demand for accountability through standardized performance metrics in schools.193

190. Mercieca and Mercieca, “How Early Is Early?,” 849.

191. This interest in making space for children to be themselves in schools, and a

consideration of how a community of philosophical inquiry facilitator best allows this, is

found in David Kennedy’s article, “Practicing philosophy of childhood: Teaching in the

(r)evolutionary mode,” Journal of Philosophy of Schools 2, no. 1.

192. Vivien Lingington, Lorayne Excelle, and Karin Murris, “Education For

Participatory Democracy: A Grade R Perspective,” Perspectives In Education 29, no.1

(2011): 36-45, 39-40; Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 10.

193. See, for example, Jana Mohr Lone, “Does Philosophy for Children Belong in

School at All?” Analytic Teaching 21, no. 2 (2014): 155; Vangsieleghem and Kennedy,

“Introduction: What is Philosophy for Children?” in Philosophy for Children in Transition,

8; Deanna Kuhn, Nicole Zillmer, and Valerie Khait, “Can Philosophy Find a Place in the

K-12 Curriculum?” in Philosophy in Schools, 257-265; Pardales and Girod, “Community

of philosophical inquiry,” 304.

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Standardization and assessment of public schools are literal examples of the police order.

However, as radical as CPI is, I conjecture that Rancière would still say it is part of the

police order. 194 Shared concepts, shared measurements, and all roles that exist in a social

institution and in social interactions are predicated on arbitrary, ends-based social

constructions. Our relationship to the truth and our inherent value and intelligence, which

we all possess equally, should be recognized as separate from anything we determine

socially.

In arguing for a critical philosophy of childhood as a component of CPI in

elementary schools, Walter Kohan has written about the ability for philosophy with

children to indeed help call into question the very distinction between children and adults,

thus problematizing the police order in which “child” and “adult” are constructed.195 On

this account, Rancière and CPI are thus in agreement that philosophy can play a role in

destabilizing the social roles inherent and implied in schools.

Rancière refers to school as an ambiguous form that contains a mingling of

meanings dependent on each participant’s vision for the school and its function.196 The

school is thus:

194. For examples of references to community of philosophical inquiry as radical,

see Burgh and Yorshansky, “Communities of Inquiry,” 443 and Arie Kizel, “From

laboratory to praxis: Communities of philosophical inquiry as a model of (and for) social

activism,” childhood and philosophy 12, no. 25 (2016): 497-517.

195. Walter Kohan, “What Can Philosophy and Children Offer Each Other,”

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, vol 14 no 4, 2-8; 4

196. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 55.

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the site of permanent negotiation of equality between the democratic state and the

democratic individual: a manifold negotiation which, to unequal and often

contradictory expectations, offers gains and losses which are infinitely more

complex than those conceived of by the analysis of educational ‘failure.’197

The school as a form of gathering, is a break from the production of everyday life, yet this

kind of break only functions as such for those who have the affluence and the desire to

treat it as such. School is not solely for leisure, nor is its activity detached from survival

but is a site of “permanent negotiation” among participants.198 This notion of negotiation is

reminiscent of the general idea of democracy, which is certainly prevalent as an ideal

among CPI advocates. Rancière makes strong critiques of democracy as an institutional

practice, arguing that real democracy happens when previously accepted ways of being,

speaking, thinking, etc., are disrupted.

While some CPI practitioners see inquirers as becoming better participants of

formal democracy, Rancière critiques formal democracy in favor of total, though

impermanent, disruption to the form of democracy/politics – disruption which he argues is

actual democracy/politics.199 For Rancière, this is dissensus – it is what philosophy ought

to be. Along the same lines, some scholars argue that CPI supports the moral and civic

development of children, and most would agree that CPI helps students to develop into

197. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 55.

198. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 54-55.

199. For Rancière on politics pertaining to social roles see the whole of

Disagreement and particularly pages 16 and 29.

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better thinkers, but these are notions of which Rancière is highly critical.200 Granted, CPI

theorists seem to have a range of meanings when they refer to the democratic benefits of

introducing K-12 students to philosophy through CPI.201 It should also be noted that there

are cases where CPI proponents explicitly challenge the idealization of democracy and

democratic practices within the field.202 Indeed, one such figure, Walter Kohan, shares

with Rancière this very insistence that philosophy is a kind of dissensus or interval, and

that it ought not to have aims like ‘contributing to democracy.’ He writes:

When philosophy is the official voice of a politics or a morality – whether

aristocratic or democratic, liberal or authoritarian – it loses its subversive and

transformative power. Moreover, when any morality, politics, or religion is set up

as a purpose of philosophy, philosophy itself becomes impossible. If philosophy is

possible at all, it is because morality, politics, religion constitute an empty space, an

interrogation, an interval.203

200. For reference to moral development of children and creation of democratic

citizens, see Green, “Education for Democracy,” 179 and 183. For depictions of

community of philosophical inquiry as being a method to help to develop better thinkers,

see for example Gregory and Granger, “Introduction: John Dewey on Philosophy and

Childhood,” 10; Matthew Lipman, Philosophy in the Classroom, 2nd Edition.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980), 12-16 (for example, “They (children) must

be taught to think and, in particular, to think for themselves,” 13.

201. Haynes and Murris describe participatory democracy as pre-supposing non-

dualist epistemologies that imply that every participant is partial, pointing out that

compulsory schooling itself is not democratic. See Haynes and Murris, “Epistemological

Shift,” 118-120. David Kennedy describes “democracy as social practice” and allows for

this practice to deconstruct any impulse within schools to reproduce the state’s economic,

political, and hegemonic practices. See David Kennedy, “The Role of a Facilitator in a

Community of Philosophical Inquiry,” Metaphilosophy 35 no. 5 (2004): 763.

202. Walter Kohan, “The Origin, Nature and Aim of Philosophy in Relation to

Philosophy for Children,” Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 12 no 2, 25-

30; 25-26.

203. Walter Kohan, “Education, Philosophy and Childhood: The Need to Think an

Encounter,” Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children 16 no. 1, 4-11; 11

94

Alas, there is a divergence between those within CPI who advocate for this kind of

subversive nature of philosophy, and those who argue for its democratizing effects.204 For

the purposes of my project, I will not attempt to parse out what these nuanced differences

are, for it seems that such a project, while very worthwhile, would be a large undertaking

in itself.205 In general, I can assert that I side with those advocates of CPI who value

nonlinear movement through dialogue, emphasizing emergent properties and the process

itself rather than any outcome that is useful for participation in society at large.206 For

example, Kennedy and Kennedy refer to CPI as a dynamic discursive structure that is

never completed and that “could be described as a non-linear, self-organizing

communication and argumentation system that presents itself as linear.”207

Insofar as I share Rancière’s critiques of democracy as an institution or formal

process, my perspective appears to be in the minority here. Even though I believe, for

example, that symbolic and informal logic are invaluable for students to learn, making it

easier for them to detect faulty argumentation emanating from the media and authority

figures, and even though I do believe that by participating in CPI students can become

204. For a further example of the use of the subversive terminology see Kennedy

“Fools, Young Children and Philosophy,” 5, and Kohan, “The Origin,” 28.

205. Indeed, there are excellent pieces that explore the topic. For example, see

Burgh and Yorshansky, “Communities,” 436-452.

206. Haynes and Murris, “Epistemological Shift,” 123-124; David Kennedy, “The

Role of a Facilitator in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry,” Metaphilosophy 35 no. 5

(2004), 754.

207. Kennedy and Kennedy, “Community of Philosophical Inquiry,” 100 -101.

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more empathic, better listeners, and so on, I do not register the value of these things in

terms of their applicability to democracy. I may be willing to make this kind of argument

for pragmatic purposes, but in my view, understanding CPI in terms of its contribution to

democracy presupposes too much about democracy that could potentially discount or

contradict the very assumptions within Rancière’s system that I affirm.

To explain this in slightly different terms, what draws me to the values shared by

Rancière and CPI is more in the realm of universal ethical or metaphysical beliefs about

the world and others, than in the realm of pragmatic beliefs about contemporary issues.

The important takeaway for now from my coverage of the topic of schooling in relation to

democracy for CPI and for Rancière is that there is not full agreement. It is hard to know

whether CPI advocates mention the democratic payoffs of the practice in all cases because

they believe democracy is a primary good, or because it is merely useful in demonstrating

the value of CPI. Hence, this topic will come up elsewhere in this dissertation when I

consider the justifications for CPI that are necessary when soliciting buy-in from schools.

Returning to the project of reviewing similarities, Lipman distinguishes between

schooling and education in order to contrast convention and conformity with the practice

of good judgment. Good judgment, he argues, is nurtured within a CPI session, which he

argues are more often contrary to any consensus.208 This aligns with Rancière’s notion of

dissensus. Indeed, Karin Murris has suggested that CPI is beneficial because it uses

prompts that challenge norms and social mores, and urges students to move beyond

208. Lipman, Thinking in Education, 47.

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political correctness and to say what they really think.209 Communities of philosophical

inquiry, she argues, following Biesta’s work on Rancière, thrive on dissensus, not

consensus.210

To give an example of what we might call dissensus in a CPI, I will draw from a

dialogue excerpt from Nathan Brubaker, recorded when he was facilitating in a fifth grade

classroom. Students were discussing whether the purpose of going to school is to learn to

think. They were agreeing with one another that you go to school and learn from others

what types of things are wrong because they repeat it to you over and over. One student

disagreed, and changed the example they were using to discuss the topic:

Thelma: Well I kind of disagree with Aruba when she said that if more and more

people keep telling you that this is right then you’re going to, then eventually

you’re going to come to the decision that everyone else is right and you’re wrong.

Nathan: Because then you’d have an answer.

Voice: What?

Voice: Like…

Nathan: If everyone, if everyone told you this is what’s right, this is what’s right…

Thelma: Then…

Nathan: …that would give you an answer.

Thelma: No, but if you, okay, I’m going to change Clifford’s example…211

209. Karin Murris, “Corporal Punishment And The Pain Provoked By The

Community Of Enquiry Pedagogy In The University Classroom.” Africa Education Review

11, no. 2 (2014): 228; Murris and Haynes, “Wrong Message.”

210. Karin Murris, “Corporal Punishment,” 225, 230.

211. Nathan Brubaker, “Notes from the Field: Why do people go to school?” in

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, 2006, vol. 18, no. 1, 47-50; 48.

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In this example, Thelma not only disagreed with her classmates but was dissatisfied with

the inference that the facilitator was drawing from her statements. She held out in order to

get her point across, willing to disagree with her teacher and classmates, and insisting that

the example be changed. Later in the dialogue she was able to restate her initial position

slightly differently:

I’m just saying that if, if fifty thousand people tell you that something is, that guns

are good, that you’re not necessarily going to believe them just because fifty

thousand people tell you that you’re wrong. It’s, I’m trying to tell Aruba that I

don’t think that the more people that tell you you’re wrong, that you’re going to

believe them.212

Ironically, this dialogue literally dealt with the topic of consensus, and it is refreshing to

see that Thelma had an objection to the alleged inherent value of consensus. However, the

example is also helpful because Thelma demonstrated dissensus by disagreeing and

insisting on a new example. With Joanna Haynes, Murris states that CPI pedagogy:

thrives on dissensus and disagreement as it enables opinions to be put to the test

(…) guided by experienced facilitators who need to be able to have the courage to

be moved and changed by what happens in a community with others who are

different from them.213

As argued here, CPI thus assumes an equality of intelligence, acknowledges a separation

between language and truth, and values dissensus. Having covered the many ways in

which CPI aligns with Rancière on schooling, let us now look at some conceptions of

philosophy that can be attributed to proponents of CPI.

212. Brubaker, Notes from the Field,” 50.

213. Haynes and Murris, “Epistemological Shift,” 128.

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Philosophy

In Chapter Three I parsed Rancière’s critique of philosophy as a focus on elitism,

method, and truth, and in describing his more positive account of philosophy, I posed the

values of egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity. This section refers back to these

critiques and norms so as to consider their fit with CPI. Again, there are plenty of other

critiques of philosophy that Rancière makes that may be consistent with CPI, and which I

did not cover in Chapter Three and cannot cover here. The purpose of condensing

Rancière’s critiques and norms of schooling and philosophy into smaller concepts is,

again, to focus this study, and to make my case that there are similarities between Ranciere

and CPI that may help us to think through the question of the possibility of philosophy in

schools.

Those within the philosophy for/with children movement who choose to use CPI

seem to share Rancière’s critique of the elitism of traditional philosophy, albeit

unknowingly. Traditional philosophy has been labeled “Big P Philosophy” by proponents

of CPI, echoing Rancière’s argument that traditional philosophy perpetuates hierarchy.214

Proponents Amber Strong Makaiau and Chad Miller write that “Like Plato’s philosopher

kings, “Big P” philosophers are members of an exclusive club, accessible only to those

rare souls who have endured a long period of academic preparation.”215 “Little p”

214. Amber Strong Makaiau and Chad Miller, “The Philosopher’s Pedagogy,”

Educational Perspectives: Journal of the College of Education/University of Hawai’i at

Manoa 44, no.1 and 2, 8-19.

215. Makaiau and Miller, ‘The Philosopher’s Pedagogy,” 10.

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philosophy, they argue, is nurtured in a CPI by way of recognizing the wonder and ability

to ask questions that is inherent in all people from a young age.

David Kennedy argues that CPI is continually reconstructing philosophy216 In order

to characterize this reconstruction he argues that:

this reconstructive impulse is fed both by the introduction of genuine communal

dialogue into philosophical practice – which is a fulfillment of the Socratic promise

– and the induction of children into that practice, which represents a challenge to

philosophical practice as a white adult male domain governed by a narrow view of

human reason.217

Kennedy is speaking here of the need for reconstructing “Big P” philosophy, just as

Rancière has done in his critique of traditional philosophy. The description of philosophy

as being under the domain of white males and a narrow view of human reason reveals

Kennedy’s belief that this is problematically elitist. As shown in Chapter Three, Rancière

has the same issue with traditional philosophy. Reconstruction of philosophy occurs when

we practice CPI because we are subverting the potential for elitism and are instead

upholding an egalitarian model, wherein it is assumed that everyone is capable of

reasoning. If we take Rancière’s positive iterations of philosophy as also implying this

kind of reconstructive impulse – never as a permanent reconstruction, but a temporary

destabilization of concepts – then Rancière arguably supports “little p” philosophy.

216. Kennedy, “Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy,”

349.

217. Kennedy, “Practicing philosophy of childhood,” 11.

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Rancière and CPI share another commonality insofar as they are concerned about

philosophy viewed solely as method. They value, on the contrary, the power of assertion. I

should preface this topic by stating that this is somewhat of a grey area, so I am

highlighting it as a point of tension that Rancière and CPI share. Stephen Miller writes –

after disparaging Rancière’s The Ignorant Schoolmaster – that:

philosophy, when understood properly, should make us unlearn much of what we

believe, should make us uncomfortable, should make us uncertain and should

ultimately, then, make us stronger and better.218

Even though Rancière would surely agree with a number of these alleged outcomes of

philosophy, and with Miller’s drawing attention to the kind of positive picture of

philosophy I want to bring out in Rancière, the language of “better” may be problematic.219

This notion of making students better through some activity that takes place at school is

precisely the notion that gets called into question by Rancière’s political theory and

consequently by his positive notion of philosophy. Indeed, implementation or utilization of

philosophy as a tool runs contrary, for Rancière, to the value of emancipation.

This concern also maps on to differing views in CPI literature regarding the

purpose and potential use-value of philosophy within schools: whether the value is

inherent to the method or to the ‘products’ of the method.220 There is a range of reported

218. Stephen K. Miller, “Socratic Aporia in the Classroom and the Development of

Resilience,” 34. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis, 38.1 (2017), 29-36.

219. I touch on Rancière’s assertion that there can be ‘better’ police orders and

‘better’ schools elsewhere, but for the purposes of this section I am voicing the worry

Rancière has about our use of this kind of ethically-loaded language.

220. Discussion of the debate itself can be found in Gregory, “Precollege

Philosophy Education,” 37-38, and 72-79; Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 8;

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benefits to doing CPI. For example, some theorists highlight the cognitive virtues CPI may

promote.221 It has also been argued that it supports student freedom or autonomy.222 Some

argue that the value of CPI comes from the fact that it is radical or subversive.223 Treating

philosophy as instrumental for other such ends is certainly found throughout CPI

scholarship, but not all advocates take this approach.224 Nancy Vansieleghem and David

Kennedy explain that in what they are stipulating as the “second generation” of philosophy

for children practitioners, the earlier notion of using CPI as a tool to sharpen thinking skills

is too similar to the tendency in traditional schooling to instrumentalize learning; CPI

David Kennedy, “Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy,” 346-

347, 349.

221. See Maughn Rollins Gregory in “Care as a Goal of Democratic Education,”

Journal of Moral Education 29, no. 4 (2000): 446; Philip Cam, “Fact, value and

philosophy education,” Journal of Philosophy in Schools 1, no. 1 (2014); Stephan Millett

and Alan Tapper, “Benefits Of Collaborative Philosophical Inquiry In Schools,”

Educational Philosophy & Theory 44, no. 5 (2012): 546-567; Gilbert Burgh, Terri Field,

and Mark Freakley, Ethics and the Community of philosophical inquiry: Education for

Deliberative Democracy (South Melbourne: Thompson/Social Science Press, 2006).

222. See Susan Gardner, “Teaching Freedom,” in Analytic Teaching 21, no. 1

(2000): 24-33.

223. Gregory and Granger describe the practice as radical or subversive,

particularly as articulated by advocate David Kennedy. See Gregory and Granger,

“Introduction: John Dewey on Philosophy and Childhood,” 14.

224. Biesta, “Philosophy, Exposure, and Children,” in Philosophy for Children in

Transition: Problems and Prospects, eds. Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy

(Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 141-142.

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ought not be seen as instrumental to some other end that is predetermined, but ought to

arise within the community itself.225

If Rancière and many CPI practitioners caution against instrumental uses for

philosophizing, yet Rancière and CPI practitioners both seem to believe that schools can be

improved, what is (or should be) the relationship between philosophy and schools? It has

been argued that CPI and Rancière’s icon of the ignorant schoolmaster compel us to be

inventive in schools – using the context in such a way as to allow novelty to emerge.226

This may be treating the space as a kind of tool, and maybe philosophy too, but not for a

set end. Speaking again of the evolving “generations” of approaches to philosophy for

children, CPI being one practice among others, Vansieleghem and Kennedy explain that:

Speculations about methods and approaches tend to be contextualized to particular

communities, and the only broad consensus that does exist is that philosophy for

children is about promoting the exchange of rational argument and thoughtful

opinion. There is, however, no longer understood to be one best way of reasoning,

for collective reason, it is held, is shaped and articulated by the social community

in which it operates. Now philosophy for children becomes philosophy with

children. The change in the preposition is an important index of difference: it

betokens a still greater emphasis on dialogue as fundamental and indispensable to

the pedagogy of philosophy, which is no longer understood as the modeling and

coaching of an ideal of analytical reason, but as what generates communal

reflection, contemplation and communication. In this respect, the second generation

will no longer speak about philosophy for or with children in terms of a method,

225. Nancy Vangsieleghem and David Kennedy, “Introduction: What is Philosophy

for Children?” in Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects, eds.

Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 8-9.

226. Walter Omar Kohan, Marina Santi and Jason Thomas Wozniak. “Philosophy

for teachers: between ignorance, invention and improvisation.” In The Routledge

International Handbook of Philosophy for Children, 253-259. Edited by Maughn Rollins

Gregory, Joanna Haynes and Karin Murris (New York: Routledge, 2017).

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but rather as a movement encompassing a medley of approaches, each with its own

methods, techniques and strategies.227

Perhaps when looking at CPI as a movement, and indeed as a movement in which there are

emergent assertions and creative responses rather than dogmatic methods, the

compatibility with Rancière is quite cogent. Gert Biesta argues that often in CPI, where

philosophy is being used in an educational setting, it seems to be treated as an instrument

to ‘develop better humans.’228 What we ought to do, he argues, is use it to help expose

ourselves, and our students, to our ignorance, to the part of ourselves that has a unique

perspective and intelligence. In this way, he says, philosophy in schools can be an

interruption rather than a developmental step or instrument toward producing some end.229

Kohan and Hayes have even suggested that the ignorant schoolmaster and the CPI

facilitator are indeed “difficultating,” rather than facilitating because the facilitator

problematizes assumptions, inferences, and so forth.230 Interruption, or difficultating, is

quite analogous to dissensus.

227. Vangsieleghem and Kennedy, “Introduction: What is Philosophy for

Children?” 9.

228. Gert Biesta, “Touching the soul? exploring an alternative outlook for

philosophical work with children and young people,” childhood & philosophy, rio de

janeiro 13, n. 28 (2017) 435.

229. Biesta, “Philosophy, Exposure, and Children,” 149; Biesta, “touching the

soul?” 435.

230. Joanna Haynes and Walter Kohan, “Facilitating and Difficultating: The

Cultivation of Teacher Ignorance and Inventiveness,” in Literacies, literature and

learning: reading classrooms differently, 204-221. Edited by Karin Murris and Joanna

Haynes. New York: Routledge, 2018.

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Universal teaching may not share the same ends as that of CPI, which for many is

to reach the most reasonable conclusion or response. If we simply take the Jacototian

method from The Ignorant Schoolmaster, there are limited results we may aim for (i.e.

translating the Telemaque).231 However, readers who consider other Rancièrian works tend

to take him to be advocating for a more open-ended approach to education.232 For

Rancière, the only necessary component, it seems, would be the assumption of an equality

of intelligence; no particular end is important. He writes of the student:

He doesn’t necessarily find what he was looking for, and even less what he was

supposed to find. But he finds something new to relate to the thing that he already

knows. What is essential is the continuous vigilance, the attention that never

subsides without irrationality setting in.233

For practitioners of CPI it is not the case that in an inquiry “anything goes,” for there are

procedures pertaining to participation and respect that must be followed, and there must an

earnest effort to co-construct knowledge.234 Yet, parameters can be deemed as necessary

231. Some do read Rancière and his use of Jacotot as a recommendation for

following Jacotot’s method, rather than seeing it as a demonstration of the principle of

assuming an equality of intelligence. For an example of this literal type of reading of

Rancière on Jacotot see David O. Waddington, “Wrong Place, Wrong Time: The Ignorant

Schoolmaster Comes to America,” delivered at the March 2018 Philosophy of Education

Society Conference in Chicago, IL. Forthcoming in the Philosophy of Education Yearbook.

232. Waddington, “Wrong Place, Wrong Time: The Ignorant Schoolmaster Comes

to America.”

233. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 33.

234. Linington, Excelle, and Murris, “Education For Participatory Democracy,” 40;

for a mention of rules see Lena Green, “Education for Democracy: Using the Classroom

Community of philosophical inquiry to Develop Habits of Reflective Judgment in South

African Schools,” in Dialogue - Culture - Philosophy: Philosophizing with Children in

Transcultural Environments ed. D.G. Camhy (Sankt Augustin, Germany: Academia

Verlag, 2009), 183; Haynes and Murris, “Wrong Message,” 3.

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within the Rancièrian picture too, for there is a need for holding a task in common just as

there is a need for some force to inspire, push, or sustain one’s will. In CPI, while there is

an attempt to “arrive at one or more reasonable judgments regarding their own questions,”

there are also scholars who argue that this need not entail a linear or teleological trajectory,

and that this reasonable answer is not predetermined or set in stone; what is most

reasonable could change from moment to moment.235 As Kennedy writes of a CPI

dialogue:

It is a chaotic structure, a continuously emergent, open system, whose direction can

never be overdetermined. Freeze-framed at any given moment, it contains a

multiplicity of possible directions in which it could move forward, which depend to

a great extent on the individuals participating in the communal dialogue.236

The epistemology behind both this selection and the pervasive treatment of the notion of

truth within CPI literature are certainly reminiscent of Pragmatism, from which the

practice draws inspiration. Much like Rancière’s conception of truth, where it is underlying

and ineffable, so too does CPI have some element of assuming a kind of unifying, shared

experience, the value of which serves as a kind of truth.237 Participants in a CPI can share

their own experiences or create hypotheticals to demonstrate their understanding of, or

resistance to, a proposed position or concept. There are thus emergent, creative assertions

235. Gregory, “Precollege Philosophy Education,” 73.

236. Kennedy, “Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy,”

346.

237. Kennedy, “Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy,”

340.

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that bring value to the group and ultimately disrupt moments of seeming consensus. Shared

meanings, voiced understanding, and articulated thoughts can serve as a kind of communal

truth, but this is secondary to the underlying assumption of the value of each community

member. That which is created by each community member takes precedence over the

notion of an objective kind of fact that is discoverable and separate from the lived

experiences of the community members.

There are thus overlaps between the values of egalitarianism, assertion, and

creativity within both Rancière and CPI’s conception of philosophy. These values, a

response to the problematic elitism, method, and truth arguably found in traditional

philosophy, are important when considering whether philosophy can or should transpire in

K-12 schools. Both Rancière and CPI have strengths and weaknesses, in my view, when

analyzing schooling and philosophy. By bringing them together their respective fields of

study can be invigorated, and those of us interested in bringing philosophy to schools can

be constructively provoked.

Conclusion

For Rancière, schools will never be exempt from the problems that inspire and

demand philosophical destabilizing, no matter how utopic the schools are, and no matter

what methods or ‘un-methods’ we enforce within them. We see Rancière acknowledge the

form of the school as a temporal break from the rest of society, thus conducive to the

forging of new possibilities, yet we also see him admonish the explicative order of schools

in the Ignorant Schoolmaster. Despite all his critiques, Rancière suggests that schools can

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be better. These better schools, though, will always lie apart from what real philosophy is

doing. Ultimately, Rancière wants to preserve the skepticism toward all social institutions,

even those formed spontaneously within a CPI. In other words, while dialogue itself takes

on a value in CPI, in Rancière’s picture it is dissensus that has value. In each of these, it

seems to fit that philosophy is focused on contestable concepts.238 Further, participants in

this conversation are each inherently equipped to contest such concepts. “Little p”

philosophy allows us to refocus our relationship to truth at any moment. While Rancière is

not suggesting that this is something that must be taught (for indeed, it is arguably a

realization or level of awareness that is always possible), talking about it in school may

offer support to those who are doubtful about the realization they have had. CPI may thus

give students the confidence to do this philosophizing both inside and outside of school,

but it should not be viewed as the means by which they are able to do this philosophizing

in the first place. What we choose to call this in schools will never change the fact that

Rancièrian, “little p,” dissensual philosophizing, is in direct contrast to schooling itself.

Maughn Gregory and David Granger argue that there are central questions within

the philosophy in schools movement: 1) whether children can practice philosophy 2)

whether (and why) they should be invited and guided to do so, and, 3) assuming positive

responses to the first two, how this should happen.239 The similarities I have elaborated on

238. Laurance Splitter and Ann Margaret Sharp, Teaching for Better Thinking: The

Classroom Community of Inquiry (1995) Melbourne: ACER, 130.

239. Gregory and Granger, “Introduction: John Dewey on Philosophy and

Childhood,” 7. Numbers introduced by me.

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in this chapter, between Rancière’s critiques and norms around schooling and philosophy

and those found in CPI, should assure us that both Rancière and CPI would answer the

above questions in a similar way. Anyone can practice philosophy, because philosophy has

nothing to do with intelligence or status but is, rather, an orientation. Students in K-12

schools should be able to philosophize in schools, and it would be great if they could;

given the problematic elements of schools, philosophizing in schools would be

empowering, emancipatory. However, authentic philosophizing cannot be forced or

guaranteed, even with the good intention of coming to schools with a philosophical

method.

CPI is a response to traditional schooling practices to the extent that traditional

schools maintain inequality through stultification, assume objective truth that requires

explanation, and are wed to progress and the police order. CPI is a response to traditional

philosophy to the extent that traditional philosophy is elitist, assumes a method that

alienates lived experiences, and is predicated on singular objectivity. The norms put forth

or assumed within CPI are compatible with Rancière’s norms. As I have argued in this

chapter, there is an extent to which CPI assumes equality of intelligence, believes in the

separation between language and truth, and values egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity.

Dissensus is a pervasive value for Rancière and CPI. This chapter has argued that,

granting Rancière’s critiques and norms regarding schooling and philosophy, we might

have good reason to practice CPI in schools. I hypothesize that CPI may be our best bet for

supporting dissensus in schools. Even Kohan, a proponent of CPI and a reader of Rancière,

asks the question, “Is the experience of philosophy possible in an institution, like the

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school, which is overwhelmed by a determinative order?”240 In keeping with this spirit of

skepticism, let us proceed to test my hypothesis; in the next chapter of this dissertation I

theorize the application of CPI to schools.

240. Kohan, “Education,” 11.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE POSSIBILITY OF PHILOSOPHY IN SCHOOLS

In the previous chapter I argued that if we accept the critiques of schooling and

philosophy and corresponding values shared by Rancière and community of philosophical

inquiry (CPI), we have good reason to use CPI in traditional schools. However, there are

limitations to bringing the practice into such schools, and CPI should not be treated as a

cure-all. In this chapter I consider how the critiques and norms of schooling and

philosophy support both creating new schools modeled wholly on CPI and bringing CPI

into traditional schools. Although each approach ends up mirroring some of the very

tendencies in schooling and philosophy that they are meant to combat, I contend that

utilizing CPI in these ways is the best way to embody the values I have argued are shared

by Rancière and CPI.

Whether in schools or not, a noteworthy component of CPI according to some

advocates is possibility. Indeed, this is essential to education: that life is not fated, that

something can be learned, that a life can be changed. Possibility is a basic premise of

schooling, and its existence is the only way to distinguish compulsory schooling from

overt indoctrination. Students can respond to content and instruction in different ways, and

many outcomes are possible. The chapter thus also explores the verbiage of possibility

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within CPI literature in the hopes of reflecting on how Rancière might further inform the

question of whether philosophy is possible in schools.

Ultimately, this project aims to use Rancière to think through the possibility of

philosophy in schools despite his strong warnings against both philosophy and schooling.

This project presupposes that better schools and better schooling practices are possible,

presupposes that it is possible to use Rancière to inform CPI. In the first section of this

chapter, “Practical Possibilities,” I review the idea of schools based wholly on CPI as well

as the idea of introducing CPI into existing, traditional schools. 241 Returning to the driving

question of this dissertation, in this second section of this chapter, “Conceptual

Possibilities,” I describe the ways in which the notion of possibility informs both

approaches to CPI implementation.

In the introduction of this dissertation I asked: How might the articulation of a

positive Rancièrean conception of philosophy help in understanding what is at stake in

practicing CPI in U.S. K-12 schools? Ultimately, the conception of philosophy I have

worked on illuminating in this dissertation does not have a purpose in the way that must be

justified when it goes into an existing traditional school, or even when it founds new

schools. It is not ends-oriented. CPI entails the assumptions that Rancière argues we should

have, embodying the values he thinks philosophy should have. While it entails the values

of egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity, these are all based on what is possible – what is

assumed, not measured nor articulated. Rancière holds that real political moments or

241. Of course, these options are not mutually exclusive. I distinguish between

these approaches simply to consider the implications of each approach separately.

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emancipation occur as ruptures in the police order – spontaneously and without method, or

not at all. CPI inquirers, exemplifying an appreciation for this kind of spontaneity, allow

for the community itself to establish the questions prompting each inquiry, and to follow

the inquiry where it leads.242 So how can a practical question about this be answered, or

even asked?

Before considering how it might be practically possible to implement CPI in

schools, a small disclaimer is in order: it is important to acknowledge that this is a venture

Rancière would not wholeheartedly endorse. Pelletier warns about applying Rancièrean-

inspired notions to educational settings because there are two ways in which he is not

concerned with communities (and analogously, learning communities or schools). Firstly,

Pelletier argues, Rancière is not worried about making schools do a better job of assessing

skills and determining appropriate social roles, because he rejects the idea that there is any

necessary relationship between social function and capacity. Social roles, specialization,

and the distribution of power that they entail are understood as arbitrary, constructed, and

designated in order to accomplish collective ends. Thus, if we think that we can use

Rancière to develop schools that administer career-placement tests more successfully, or

that develop ‘better citizens,’ we are mistaken. Secondly, Pelletier argues, Rancière is not

concerned with helping those who suffer because of how their community (or school, or

242. We see this too in Storme and Vlieghe. “Offering a ‘manual of suspension’

would consist in explaining how we should begin anew, but the only manual for beginning

anew is a perfectly empty book that offers potentiality itself, in its emptiness, in its lack of

destiny.” Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experience of Childhood and the Learning Society,”

23.

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society) is ordered. Schools are part of what Rancière calls the archipolitical apparatus,

insofar as they merely serve to explain and thus justify socio-economic inequality.243 I

ventured to use Rancière for this project because of this strong skepticism, but it is

important to acknowledge that the aim of using Rancière to conduct a pedagogical practice

does involve some contradiction.

Practical Possibilities

If we agree with the critiques of schooling and philosophy I attributed to Rancière

in Chapters Two and Three, we could argue that philosophy should exist in schools, and

that the best form of it would be CPI.244 By way of reminder, the conception of schooling

that I have argued is found in both Rancière and CPI is based on critiques of inequality,

stultification, truth, explanation, progress, and the police order. Traditional schooling

entails these problems to varying degrees because it is predicated on students progressing

through ranked grades under supervision of teachers and administrators, obliged to

demonstrate their understanding of discrete bodies of knowledge so as to earn diplomas

and grades that determine their ability to receive training for, or acceptance into, various

243. Caroline Pelletier, “No Time or Place for Universal Teaching: The Ignorant

Schoolmaster and Contemporary Work on Pedagogy,” 112.

244. There are at least three ways to bring CPI into existing schools: we could have

discrete inquiry sessions about general topics nestled between traditional classroom

activities; we could use inquiry as a component of instruction for every subject; or we

could use inquiry as a method when covering instruction on the history of philosophy. In

this section, when I reference bringing CPI into traditional schools I am referring to these

methods collectively.

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roles (i.e. careers) within society. Challenging these assumptions of traditional schooling

involves a different ethical, epistemological, and methodological orientation. Hence, the

alternative values pertaining to schooling I have drawn out are the assumption of equality

of intelligence, a belief in the separation between language and truth, and the value of

dissensus. The alternative conception of philosophy shared by both Rancière and CPI

advocates that I have elucidated over the last four chapters includes the values of

egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity, which are in direct contrast with the elitism,

method, and truth found in traditional philosophy. Some questions remain: does it matter

what kind of school CPI is implemented in? Tactically, is there an order of priority that

should be followed?

Community of Philosophical Inquiry in New Schools

Some authors within CPI literature have theorized whole-school models based on

critiques and values common to Rancière and CPI and have problematized cases where

philosophy is merely brought into traditional schools. In this section I focus on David

Kennedy, whose body of literature, though without explicit reference to Rancière, betrays

some of Rancière’s radical commitments.245 I highlight ideas put forth by Kennedy in this

section in order to think through ways that a school based on CPI might align with

245. Granted, David Kennedy and Nadia Kennedy have written not only about the

whole-school model, but also of practicing CPI at the level of the single-discipline as well

as the inter-disciplinary approach when bringing CPI into existing schools. See Nadia and

David Kennedy, “Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Discursive Structure, and its

Role in School Curriculum Design,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45, no. 2 (2011):

265-283.

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Rancière, as well as ways such a school may still be problematic from a Rancièrian

perspective.

I have drawn upon Rancière in this project precisely because he is so critical of

schools as social institutions. He insists that if we take equality as our end in schools, we

are attributing to schools “the fantasmatic power of realizing social equality, or at least, of

reducing ‘social fragmentation.’”246 If we are starting out with inequality, aiming for

equality, we are doomed. CPI allows us to start from an assumption of equality, and indeed

thrives on dissensus. A school based on this practice would seem, at least in theory, to

structurally avoid the problem of aiming for equality.

Kennedy and Rancière agree on the role of schools in society, each describing

school as a central way in which the police order is reinforced. Kennedy describes the

school as:

a site where the adult-child relation is regularized, formalized, fitted for the

construction of relations of authority in the wider adult world - the “workplace,”

the “moneyplace,” and the “policyplace.” It is in school where a process secondary

to family socialization but equally powerful is initiated. Here the desires, the

aspirations, the prohibitions, the fatalisms, the boundaries, and even the

transgressive dreams of the modal adult - the adult with certain commonly shared

tastes, aspirations, and expectations - are instilled and enforced in hegemonic form

as discourses, dispositions, beliefs, and practices.247

As I described in Chapter Two, Rancière takes schools to be prime examples of the police

order where, just as Kennedy describes above, students learn the ways in which they fit. A

246. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 11.

247. David Kennedy, The Well of Being: Childhood, Subjectivity, and Education,

SUNY Press: Albany (2006) 154-155.

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school constituted by CPI could theoretically help mitigate this problem, insofar as the

practice can include students asserting different viewpoints that challenge prescribed roles,

as well as scrutiny of terms and definitions. CPI can indeed challenge the police order that

pervades within a group. However, how might a CPI-based school push back against the

overall premise of schooling, which is still part of the larger police order? In a traditional

school one is said to move through classes, grades, and so on. How does a CPI-based

school differ from this, if at all, on a structural level? Even if the school allows for a

reprieve from the police order that obtains in the rest of society, it may still ultimately

function as part of the larger social police order.

To consider how these questions might be answered, I will describe in more detail

Kennedy’s suggestion for a CPI-based school. Again, Kennedy does not explicitly connect

his suggestions to Rancière, so I provide what I take to be the corresponding values in

Rancière (which I have argued are also in CPI). Kennedy argues that the whole school

should essentially be a CPI, and that there are four different criteria that ought to be

followed in such a school.248 I will briefly cover each of these criteria put forth by

Kennedy and suggest how they align with the values that, I have argued, are found in

Rancière.

Firstly, Kennedy asserts that such a school would entail “a hermeneutical approach

to self and other, that is, the recognition and acceptance of distance and relation in

248. I do not highlight these four points of Kennedy’s to argue that he and Rancière

are wholly compatible. Rather, I use these to draw out elements of commonality for the

purposes of thinking through the questions driving this dissertation.

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dialectical process.”249 This aligns with the belief in the separation between language and

truth because the distance between self and other, and the dialogue required for navigating

this distance, are respected. Secondly, a CPI school would be premised on “the affirmation

of the other as the “single one,” which is identified with alterity, or the decentered

psychological organization associated with “the rupture of the egoist-I.”250 This is

analogous to the assumption of an equality of intelligence – particularly the singular,

unitary nature of intelligence – and represents the value of egalitarianism insofar as it

grants that the other, while distinct and different, is just as distinct and different as oneself.

Thirdly, this school would also have “an emphasis on noninstrumental relations, which in

this case imply a meticulous respect for an attention to the perceptions, interests, and goals

of childhood and of individual children.”251 This third criterion reflects the critique of

progress and the values of dissensus and creativity, for it is concerned with unique

perspectives of every participant rather than a pre-determined end. Lastly, Kennedy argues

that a CPI school would engage in:

continuous attention to equitable relations of power, which implies political

autonomy and self-governance, both within the school – which includes the

classroom itself – and in the school’s relation to larger associations of which it may

be a part.252

249. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 167.

250. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 167.

251. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 167.

252. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 167.

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This fourth criterion is comparable to egalitarianism again, along with the value of

assertion, and the critiques of elitism and the police order, for it keeps the power within

reach of all members of the school.253

Applying our conception of philosophy to an entire school may be substantively

and structurally different because it would not be like a value-added model, nor would it be

beholden to the criteria by which the school is already organized. Making whole,

sustainable schools based on CPI might appease, in some form, the worry expressed by

Walter Kohan that the method simply inserted into a school is “a subtle way of producing

and stimulating some superficial or formal changes so that the fundamental structures may

be preserved.”254 Yet even Kohan will insist that “there is no objective or impartial

education” – a position with which Rancière would surely agree.255 Rancière insists that

his works are not meant as an offering up of a new pedagogy, nor an anti-pedagogy. He

argues that in his ideal of the ignorant schoolmaster, for example, he is not offering:

an educational idea that one could apply to systemic school reform. The virtue of

ignorance is first of all a virtue of dissociation. By asking us to dissociate teaching

from knowledge, such a virtue, such a quality, precludes itself from ever being the

253. It would seem by this last line regarding political autonomy and self-

governance that Kennedy’s conception of a CPI-school would indeed be a self-sufficient

school, and that it could in this way work toward combating the larger police order.

Indeed, I would like to explore this further in later work, particularly with respect to the

way in which this vision might overlap with anarchist visions of schooling. For more on

Kennedy’s vision see David Kennedy, “Anarchism, Schooling, and Democratic

Sensibility.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 36, no. 5 (2017): 551-568.

254. Kohan, “The Origin,” 26.

255. Kohan, “The Origin,” 30.

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principle of any institution where teaching and knowledge would come into

harmony in order to optimize the social functioning of an institution.256

There is indeed a tension between Kennedy’s more utopic vision of an intentional school

and Rancière’s admonishment of any utopic vision coinciding with social institutions (as

radical as they may be); where there is anything social, for Rancière, there is the police

order. A school like this would thus still need to be scrutinized and changed by all

members as needed.

CPI helps us to avoid the inequality and stultification found in traditional schools,

and to combat the reified notion of truth and the elitism for which traditional philosophy is

criticized. There is some risk that to justify the creation of CPI schools to the general

public there could be an over-dependence on the method of CPI, and of course there would

be some explanation of the practice required. There may be some risk that in arguing for

the creation of these schools, there is a projection of society ‘progressing’ as a result. There

is a risk that the creators of such a school would come across as elitist as compared to

those who are not part of the school, particularly when administering requirements such as

official CPI training for all teachers in the school.

Overall, the benefit of making a purely CPI school would be more pervasive if it

were a self-sufficient school, and it seems that this would be a noble pursuit. One line of

discussion within Kennedy’s works is regarding the democratic sensibilities that CPI

supports. Kennedy has described the whole-school model of CPI as an intentional

community, “conceived normatively by definition – that is, it is both experimental and

256. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 14.

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emergent and guided by normative ideals; it is not a community that “just happens,” nor is

it a community that is determined from above, by a hierarchy of power.”257 When adults

and children within a school are in equal dialogue, learning from one another as part of an

“intergenerational intentional community” or “adult-child collective,” Kennedy argues,

then egalitarianism pervades the school.258 The whole-school approach gestured toward by

Kennedy also entails valuation for democracy, and for protecting the school in its role in

cultivating democratic citizens by engaging in authentic democratic practices in the

classroom and throughout the school itself. Kennedy and Kohan write that CPI replaces

“the echo chamber of the solitary thinker, connects philosophy, not just with

epistemological and ethical transformation, but with authentic democratic practice.”259

Kennedy also refers to CPI as “deep democratic practice.”260 He sees each school,

provided it is set up properly, as a “powerful performative and experimental zone” as

allowing for “shared, participatory governance.”261 Now, it might be true that dialogue is a

skill useful in the form of democracy, but if one is sympathetic to Rancière’s critiques of

formal democracy, then portraying dialogue as a method supportive of formal democracy

is problematic. It may not be that such prizing of democracy entails all of the critiques of

257. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 174.

258. David Kennedy, “The New School,” Journal of Philosophy of Education 52,

no. 1 (2018): 108.

259. Kennedy and Kohan, “gert biesta and philosophical work,” 412.

260. Kennedy, “Dialogic Schooling,” 122.

261. Kennedy, “The New School,” 108.

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schooling and philosophy reviewed thus far, but it could be construed as a fixation on both

method and progress.

It seems to be the case that one is limited with respect to how prescriptively a new

CPI school can be described, given that prescription itself may foreclose too much in the

way of creativity, assertion, and egalitarianism. Participants in a new, Rancière-inspired

CPI school ought to be engaged together in designing their own school-community. One

might ask whether CPI would be used for every activity within this kind of school, whether

there would still be discrete classes centered on disciplines, and whether philosophy itself

would be a class (assuming there are classes). Rancière inspires an appreciation for the

way in which engaging with others in community can challenge ones will in a positive

way. Deciding on the practical details of a school could indeed be a collective challenge

informed by care for each individual, a respect for the Other (to the extent that this care is

possible). The process of collectively organizing a school based on CPI could be guided by

the principles I have argued CPI shares in common with Rancière regarding schooling and

philosophy. The collective school would keep such principles at the core of its inquiry,

ever orbiting around the principles upon which it is inspired, yet never fixated on one

particular demonstration of them.

As a further consideration, independent schools that exist outside traditional public

schools are often populated by students of parents who have the social capital required to

purposely send their students to a special school: such parents are knowledgeable about

alternative options and can afford to pay for any extra costs involved. Such students

already have a kind of privilege for this reason, as they have parents that care in some way.

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In forming the type of school described in this section, it seems it would be quite important

for the process to entail outreach to students who are not currently being helped within

public schools, or to find some other way to mitigate this risk of elitism. Again, how this

would happen without replicating various ills of schooling and philosophy may prove to be

difficult. For example, recruiting such students might require some kind of explication as

to how a CPI school will be better, will help the students or community progress, and so

on.

As I have drawn out in this section, there are benefits to creating wholly-CPI

schools if adopting Rancière’s views, yet there are also potential problems. There is more

to be explored in this arena, given that this thesis does not delve into different models of

radical schools. While it would be a worthwhile scholarly endeavor to explore various

existing models of radically different schools in order to show where Rancière and CPI

might align with such examples, it still seems to be the case that some of the details of

these future, ideal schools need to be ambiguous in principle – only formed in the present,

when they are brought into existence in community. What I have done in this section is to

offer a start regarding how one might consider applying and problematizing Rancière and

CPI in forming new schools. In order not to be exclusive with respect to methods and

applications, in the section that follows I consider the alternative approach of bringing CPI

into existing schools.

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Community of Philosophical Inquiry in Existing Schools

There are functionalist reasons for inserting CPI into schools as they exist, despite

the problems inherent in schooling. Even if the ultimate goal were to create schools based

entirely on CPI, bringing CPI to existing schools can serve as an experimental practice,

enabling practitioners to discern various considerations that would not be possible to

discern if merely theorizing about CPI in schools. If we are concerned with helping as

many students as possible, bringing CPI to existing schools until a more ideal scenario of

newly created schools can reach fruition could ultimately impact more students. Even

without the end goal of creating new schools, one might take a utilitarian view and argue

that helping more students is better, so CPI should be rolled out on a large scale in as many

public school districts as possible. It is arguably less expensive and time-consuming to

insert a few CPI sessions in schools rather than to build everything from the ground up.

Contemporary literature offers examples of how to integrate philosophy into

schools, including descriptions of lesson plans, or offers descriptions of formal and

informal studies showing the impact of dialogue in the classroom so as to bolster efforts to

increase the practice.262 It is important to have data to show the impacts of bringing

philosophy into schools so that, among other reasons, teachers can implement the practice,

funds are provided for research into the benefits of the practice, and philosophers of

262. For example, in Philosophy in Schools the eighteen articles that comprise parts

two, three, and four of the book are dedicated exclusively to descriptions of lesson plans,

extracurricular projects for students, outreach programs, and methods of assessment on the

class and school-wide level. Philosophy in Schools: An Introduction for Philosophers and

Teachers. Edited by Sara Goering, Nicholas J. Shudak, and Thomas E. Wartenberg (New

York: Routledge, 2013).

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education can support the study of CPI within academia.263 Without empirical data and

justifications, administrators, teachers, parents, and students may not accept the novelty of

CPI. If we want philosophy to be adopted in schools, it is necessary to show the results

philosophy can be expected to have if it is to be adopted. Providing lesson plans is another

practical way to help the practice flourish and can help teachers serve as facilitators of CPI

even if they have not been formally trained or have not studied philosophy.

Unfortunately, inputting the practice into traditional schools means that it can still

be usurped to justify inequality, may still be delivered in a stultifying fashion, is shrouded

in language of truth and explanation, and does not deliberately challenge the trajectory of

progress nor the norms of the police order in a traditional school. A CPI session within the

confines of the school day may challenge these notions during the session itself and may

indeed inspire thought or action outside the school, but the school day is still presumed to

continue as expected at the end of each session. Students leave the classroom and may

need to ignore everything they thought about during a CPI session in order to succeed in

their test-prep courses or to make decisions about which academic path will provide the

most lucrative or even manageable financial future. Inserting CPI into traditional schools

may keep us beholden to the aims of schooling itself. Once in a school, even with the best

intentions, there is naturally a limit to how much a group of inquirers within a classroom

can question the schooling process itself while inside a school. This is unacceptable from

263. For an example of data provided to support the acceptance of community of

philosophical inquiry in schools see Alina Reznitskaya and Ian A. G. Wilkinson. The most

Reasonable Answer: Helping Students Build Better Arguments Together. Harvard

Education Press, Boston: Harvard Education Press, 2017.

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the Rancièrian perspective, and the concern is echoed in the CPI literature as well. As

Storme and Vlieghe note, “philosophy for/with children is (…) subservient to the existing

regime.”264 This is because even if we do CPI in a classroom, we are still wed to the other

things that are happening outside the school – in the school district and in society at large.

In this sense, it can be argued that the inquiry is not all that authentic. This may seem to be

a cynical concern but is cogent if CPI is treated as a discrete subject in school. Even if CPI

promotes transferrable skills, the issue of what these skills are applied to is of concern.

As a further point, promoting the instrumentality of CPI may contradict and

perhaps counteract the non-instrumental value of the practice. As Storme and Vlighe note:

The currently hard-felt need to define philosophical activity as a useful activity - in

its content, its methods, or its objectives - jeopardizes the very potentiality that

characterizes philosophy.265

Potentiality and creativity may be facets of philosophy, but they are difficult to articulate

when educators are asked to justify their time spent with specific methods for delivery of

specific educational values.266 Further, presenting philosophy as something that provides

for possibility or novelty, as I will discuss further in the following section, returns us to the

issue of all things needing to have some place, purpose, function, or demonstration.

264. Thomas Storme and Joris Vlieghe. “The Experience of Childhood and the

Learning Society: Allowing the Child to be Philosophical and Philosophy to be Childish.”

In Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects, 13-29. Edited by

Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy. Walden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 26.

265. Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experiences of Childhood and the Learning

Society,” 26.

266. Haynes and Murris address this and other challenges in “Epistemological

Shift,” 123.

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Portraying philosophy as a feature that can be added to current schools to enhance and

enhance our citizenship also detracts from the critique of compulsory education and its

implicit obsession with progress – an issue Rancière challenges us to acknowledge.

An aspect of the philosophical conception that has taken shape over the past four

chapters is indeed in conflict with an instrumental approach to philosophy in schools, and

much of the language used when framing its use-value distorts the real value of this type of

philosophy. As Storme and Vlieghe write:

this definition of philosophical practice, as the cultivation of critical thinking skills,

turns these skills into competences to acquire, and thereby seems to undermine

neotenic openness and to make it subservient to a regime of thought that is not its

own creation.267

Framing philosophy as having a use-value that maps on to standards of intelligence and

success already existing in our culture forces us to buy into the problems exposed by

Rancière and CPI literature. Defining philosophy as having a kind of use value is

problematic if the real value is not a kind of usefulness, measurability, or demonstration.268

Making this case in an even stronger way, Kennedy argues that genuine dialogue cannot

even happen if the relationship is premised on some kind of instrumentalism.269 Having an

267. Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experience of Childhood and the Learning

Society,” 26.

268. This concern has been echoed in literature since Storme and Vlieghe’s article

as well. Jasinski and Lewis elaborate on the neotenic openness argued to be at the heart of

CPI, arguing that the practice should move toward creating “communities of infancy.” See

Jasinski, Igor and Tyson Lewis, “Community of Infancy: Suspending the Sovereignty of

the Teacher’s Voice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 15, no. 4 (2016): 538-553.

269. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 166.

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end in sight for dialogue means that at least one interlocutor is not going into the dialogue

with the possibility of changing their mind nor even altering their conception of the

relevant driving question in the inquiry. In this way, Kennedy offers, the dialogue is not

genuine.

When working to justify the aims of philosophy in schools one must be cognizant

of potentially replicating the problematic forms of philosophy and the problematic notions

associated with schooling. Philosophy in schools has been depicted as a unique practice

that no other subject in schools is offering, a way to help university philosophy

departments, and as a set of skills useful for other disciplines.270 Sometimes philosophy

thus comes into schools as a way of propping up the problematic elitism of traditional

philosophers and indeed the academic field of which they are a part.

I am not denying that there are benefits of engaging in CPI in K-12 schools, and I

am indeed an avid supporter of any way that we can introduce philosophy into schools. I

have several times been a judge and organizer for the National High School Ethics Bowl,

which may be the farthest from Rancière’s views as you can get. As a reminder, I am using

Rancière as a foil to problematize (and perhaps strengthen or give up) my dream of a

270. CPI has been described by theorists as supportive of certain cognitive virtues.

See Gregory in “Care as a Goal of Democratic Education,” 446; Cam, “Fact, value and

philosophy education;” Stephan Millett and Alan Tapper. “Benefits Of Collaborative

Philosophical Inquiry In Schools.” Educational Philosophy & Theory 44, no. 5 (2012):

546-567; Burgh, Field, and Freakley, Ethics and the Community of Inquiry. It has been

argued that taking philosophy in high school looks good on college applications, and that

pre-college philosophy will help to expand philosophy departments. See Roger Hunt, “2

Reasons High Schools Should Teach Philosophy,” on The Chronicle of Higher Education,

Dec. 15, 2012.

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philosophy-based high school. Having studied philosophy as an undergraduate and

graduate student, convinced that my struggles in high school may have been assuaged had

I been recognized for the philosophical questions I was grappling with as a teen, I tend to

believe that even just handing a high school student a Platonic dialogue will add some

good to the world. My inclination is to do whatever it takes to expose more students to

philosophical inquiry, regardless of the form – even if it is a photocopy of an ancient Greek

dialogue. If the way to do this is to make a case for the importance of learning humanistic

foundations, I am not opposed to this strategy. However, if we are considering these tactics

in light of some of the fundamental principles that I argue are implied in both CPI and

Rancière, there is more to be considered.

To get philosophy into schools we need to pitch its functional dimension.

Arguably, one could emphasize certain more marketable benefits of doing CPI, even if the

real objective of the practice entails providing a space where there is no end-game and no

ulterior purpose. Indeed, this is the approach I tend to take, supporting any and all efforts

to bring philosophy and CPI into schools, even though I want to change them. Indeed, it

might be the case that Vansieleghem and Kennedy are right when they assert that CPI,

with its inherently subversive quality, “represents a sort of Trojan Horse wheeled into the

ideological state apparatus of Western schooling.”271 Bringing CPI into schools is a way to

make philosophy – of the quite radical type – possible in schools.

271. Vangsieleghem and Kennedy, “Introduction: What is Philosophy for

Children?” 10.

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School as a Place for Possibility

Kennedy reminds us that traditional schools will always be places of struggle

between adults and children – two cultures, caught in a relation of power.272 His answer to

this is to acknowledge this power relation within schools and to ultimately protect youth

from the outside world by preserving space for the novelty they will inevitably produce

within the school, particularly in CPI sessions. This dialogue allows for “reconstruction of

epistemological and ontological convictions that better match an emergent future.”273 It is

novelty that is the underlying value, rather than adherence to what already exists.

Similarly, Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons call attention to a positive

characterization of the school that Rancière has offered, wherein school is a form of

equalization insofar as the space of a school offers students a temporal break from the

inequities they experience in their lives outside.274 By conceiving of the school’s form

rather than content, Masschelein and Simons align themselves with what may be an ideal

that we can derive from Pelletier’s interpretation: Rancière is not advocating for schools as

places where social harmony can become manifest, but instead, as places where we can

challenge the very aim of social harmony.275 For Rancière, democratic acts are emergent,

272. Kennedy, The Well of Being, 163.

273. David Kennedy, “Dialogic Schooling.” Analytic Teaching and Philosophical

Practice 35,1 (2014), 122.

274. Masschelein and Simons, “The Hatred of Public Schooling,” 156-158. Walter

Kohan insists that schools are much different now, but that philosophy might be brought

into schools to disrupt this issue. See Kohan and Kennedy, 201.

275. Pelletier, “No Time,” 115.

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excessive ruptures that break from the way we perceive the world (the distribution/partition

of the sensible), and schools for Rancière are thus just as conducive to these moments as

other places.276

Kennedy and the subset of radical thinkers found in the intersection between

Rancière and CPI propose alternative conceptions of schools wherein true possibility is

protected and nurtured when it emerges.277 This position holds that in such a school, or

intentional community, students are not burdened with the material economy, hence

serving a unique function in society. Schools may reflect some problematic features of

society, but they also serve as a space apart from society, and maintaining this space is

important if we want youth to be able to truly imagine a different world and make

changes.278

As with some advocates of CPI, Rancière warns that we ought not expect for

schools to be free of stultification, or the other problems inherent in schooling, for schools

are part of the police order. However, Rancière reminds us that his critique of institutions

is not based on an ideal of a stateless society free of all institutions, for he says that there

are still good things made possible through institutions in terms of realizing personal and

276. Lewis, “Paulo Freire's,” 126-127.

277. David Kennedy. “An Archetypal Phenomenology of Skholé.” Educational

Theory 67, 3 (December 2017): 273-290, 282.

278. As Kennedy writes, his proposed New School is “set apart from the everyday

world of production.” Kennedy, “The New School,” 107.

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social capacities.279 His insistence is that we should not assume that equality is an end that

can be achieved via the state or some alternative to it, but rather that equality is continually

enacted through our assumptions. As Rancière puts it, “intellectual emancipation is

necessarily distinct from social and institutional logic. That is to say that there is no social

emancipation, and no emancipatory school.”280 A practitioner of CPI who is informed by

Rancière acknowledges the messiness of social institutions, but decides not to profess to be

contributing to a social institution that miraculously represents knowledge and truth, nor to

judge who is more deserving of having their basic necessities met, nor to lead in a struggle

for social harmony. Administrators who are informed by CPI may grant more autonomy to

teachers, for they can assume an equality of intelligence on the part of their teaching staff.

Rancière can help with the tendency of those working to bring philosophy into

schools to embrace methodological purity. CPI practitioners can learn from Rancière that if

they are worried about the elitism of philosophy they should also worry about the elitism

of their methods. What should philosophical pedagogy look like? What books or prompts

should be used to spark philosophical dialogue? Who counts as a qualified CPI facilitator?

What kind of assessment should be used for CPI? These are all questions that assume that

we can continue refining our practices, and take different stances on the answers to these

questions. There may be better and worse ways of accomplishing certain ends, but

Rancière offers a reminder for those who find themselves becoming dogmatic in their

279. Rancière with Todd May, “Democracy, Anarchism, and Radical Politics

Today: An Interview with Jacques Rancière,” Todd May, Benhamin Noys, and Saul

Newman. Translated. by John Lechte. Anarchist Studies 16, no. 2 (2008): 173-185.

280. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 9.

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approach to philosophy in schools: there can be no science of emancipation. It may be

necessary to insist on certain parameters, set up metrics and methods, cite the benefits of

critical, caring, and dialogical thinking, but the possibility that all this work is meant to

support cannot be foreseen and will never be wholly captured. The burden of emancipation

is largely internal, for it entails examining our own assumptions, the judgments we make

about reality, and the expectations we set for others, for society, and for ourselves. In some

ways, the possibility of philosophy in schools thus depends on one’s level of comfort with

possibility itself.

Conceptual Possibilities

Although it did not start out as a term I thought important in bridging these two

bodies of scholarship, the notion of possibility has come to weigh heavily on my mind

while thinking through Rancière and CPI. Firstly, possibility is a presupposition of

schooling, because education requires the potential to learn – the potential for a change to

occur in a student. Secondly, possibility is a practical word, because one can ask whether

philosophy of the sort considered in this dissertation is possible in schools. Finally,

possibility seems to flavor all the critiques and values that Rancière and CPI share, for the

dissensual philosophical dialogue is premised on an always possible disagreement – the

possibility represented by the perspective of the Other. In the previous section I looked at

practical considerations. This section will give a gloss on some of the elements to consider

surrounding conceptual possibility, given all that has been covered thus far. I explain the

notions of subjectivization and emancipation in Rancière and show how they are values

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supported in CPI literature as well. I describe at greater length how possibility figures into

Rancière and CPI on a conceptual level. Before ending the section I offer the caveat that

viewing possibility as novelty, and treating this novelty as the primary value of CPI or

schooling itself, is problematic from the Rancièrean perspective.

Subjectivization and Emancipation

Rancière proposes that real emancipation and real democracy obtain through a

process of subjectivization – defined as “disidentification, removal from the naturalness of

a place,” wherein, by assuming an equality of intelligence, we forgo any allegiance to the

idea that power and intelligence are linked.281 Because this process of subjectivization is

predicated on an emergent element and is therefore a supplement to the existing order, it

cannot be predetermined and thus cannot be ordained from the outside – not by a teacher

nor by any authority figure.282 The process of subjectivization “happens not in actuality but

in spite of actuality.”283 Subjectivization precludes conformity.

281. Rancière, On the Shores, 36; Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 33,

Masschelein and Simons, “The Hatred of Public Schooling,” 155; Lewis, “Aesthetic

Regime,” 57; Lewis, “The Future,” 42-43; Gert Biesta, “A New Logic of Emancipation:

The Methodology of Jacques Rancière,” Educational Theory 60 (2010): 46-49. Rancière,

“Against an Ebbing Tide,” 245.

282. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 33, for description of subjectivization

as supplemental. Biesta’s work on this is also discussed briefly in Ingerid Straume,

“Democracy, Education, and the Need for Politics.” Studies in Philosophy and Education

35 (2016): 41. One interpretation (see Vlieghe, “Alphabetization,”192) holds that Rancière

attempts to take the personal contingencies outside of this dynamic as well, requiring that

real emancipatory acts be utterly undetermined by embodiment, but I am not convinced by

this interpretation.

283. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 130.

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There are many examples of subjectivization that come to mind, but an easy one is

the recent public dialogue about transgender bodies. While gender-convention in our recent

history has held that people are either male or female, it is now understood by at least some

that a person can be born one way but identify in another. This kind of gender identity goes

against physical form and is an assertion about one’s own identity, challenging the notion

that our physical bodies have anything to do with how we should perform socially, how we

should feel inside.

Emancipation obtains in emergent forms and utterances not previously expressed or

policed.284 To put it in metaphysical terms, you are emancipated if you recognize that the

material conditions of the world are not essential properties, and that existence could in

theory manifest itself differently. In terms of experience, we can perceive and observe

regardless of what situation we are in. There is the possibility to choose to be kind even in

violent situations, or to focus on a goal even in chaos. Emancipation is the recognition that

we can choose to not be dictated by our circumstances.

In Buddhist terms I would argue that this understanding of emancipation is akin to

the notion of emptiness, where the practitioner recognizes that the material world itself and

our physical reactions to it are at root only temporary, while consciousness is a constant

that has no essential nature. 285 The way things appear, the way we perceive things, says

284. Biesta and Bingham, Jacques Rancière, 73-85; Lewis, “Aesthetic Regime,”

58.

285. For an introduction and larger text on the concept of emptiness from a

Western philosophical perspective see Malcolm David Eckel, To See the Buddha: A

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nothing about any objective reality that exists. Emancipation is a break with what exists, a

true mark of freedom. To be emancipated is to defy what is, to acknowledge the apparent

facts and to choose otherwise. It may seem that this is blatant naivety or evidence of

privilege, for surely one can much more comfortably “ignore facts” if they have plenty to

eat, a secure home, and the other material conditions that make life safe.286 In part, my

response to this would be that attention to the transitivity of material circumstances, or to

the constant threat of change and impermanence, can be a helpful reminder even for those

who may be too comfortable: you can always choose how you react to change. On the

other hand, I feel that this notion of emancipating oneself could be inappropriately

prescribed as a remedy for social injustice that deserves correction; problems are not

always caused by individuals nor can they always be fixed by way of personal meditation

or reflection.287

Philosopher’s Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness (Princeton University Press: New

Jersey, 1992), 2-4.

286. There are criticisms of Rancière’s refusal to commit to ontology or specific

prescriptions. For example, since he argues that assumptions are just opinions, regardless

of whether we are scientists or janitors, one can wonder where he falls with respect to

mitigating discrepancies about important empirical disagreements such as climate change

or racially motivated policies. Regarding ontology see Bram Ieven, “Heteroreductives –

Rancière's disagreement with ontology,” Parallax, 15.3 (2009): 50-62. Regarding

mitigating discrepancies see Hallward, “Subversion of Mastery,” 39-43.

287. There is worry in the literature that Rancière’s entire argument amounts to a

suggestion to make an attitudinal shift but is not helpful in making actual changes to

exploitative institutions and economies nor in addressing strategies and affect intrinsic in

the (dis)sensual politics he promotes. See Davis, “The Radical Pedagogies,” 188-189; Alex

Means, “Aesthetics, Affect, And Educational Politics,” Educational Philosophy & Theory,

43.10 (2011): 1092; Lewis, “Realm of the Senses,” 296.

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Rather than acting on the assumption that schooling effectively recognizes and

sorts intelligence in order to justify oppression across social stations or to substantiate

socioeconomic disparities and hierarchies, emancipation entails awareness that social roles

are contracts that do not signify essential differences or intellectual merits. Emancipation

thus aligns with a presupposition regarding the value of egalitarianism.288 Subjectivization

“verifies equality” because it demonstrates one’s ability/possibility to exercise one’s will,

and a recognition of that same force in others.289 Tyson Lewis even asserts that education

just is subjectivation of the will.290 To be educated is thus to recognize oneself (and others)

as learner, as one who is choosing what to take on in life, what to become, how to

contribute to the world. Again, this could be misinterpreted as putting every burden on

individuals, and placing blame for societal inequities on individual mindsets. Emancipation

should be seen instead as an ideal for those in society who are in positions of relative

288. Rancière’s notion of equality has also been called ‘radical egalitarianism,’ and

is depicted through an educational lens in The Ignorant Schoolmaster. For more on radical

egalitarianism see Jean-Philippe Deranty, “Introduction: A Journey in Equality,” in

Jacques Rancière: Key Concepts (Routledge: New York, 2010), 3.

289. Maarten Simons and Jan Masschelein, “Governmental, Political And

Pedagogic Subjectivation: Foucault With Rancière.” In Public Education, and the Taming

of Democracy, 76-92. Edited by Maarten Simons, and Jan Masschelein, Editors. Rancière

(Walden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 88.

290. Lewis, Aesthetics of Education, 9. Jason E. Smith may also agree with this

assertion, with respect to Rancière’s discussion in The Ignorant Schoolmaster. See “The

Master in His Place: Jacques Rancière and the Politics of the Will,” in Everything is

Everything: Jacques Rancière between Intellectual Emancipation and Aesthetics

Education edited by Jason E. Smith and Annette Weisser (Pasadena: Art Center Graduate

Press, 2011).

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authority vis a vis students, and are engaged in practices intended to change both

themselves and society in order that equality can be better enacted.

Emancipation occurs without planning, because it is individual and sporadic. CPI

can help the community itself to deliberately come to grips with the reality in which we are

each imbricated as individuals grappling with representation, communication, iteration,

and social construction of roles – each of us with an equal connection to intelligence, will,

awareness, and each with our own haeecity.291 As Rancière writes:

Equality is fundamental and absent, timely and untimely, always up to the initiative

of individuals and groups who, set against the ordinary course of events, take the

risk of verifying their equality, of inventing individual and collective forms for its

verification. Affirmation of these simple principles in fact constitutes an

unprecedented dissonance, a dissonance one must, in a way, forget in order to

continue improving schools, programs and pedagogies, but that one must also, from

time to time, listen to again so that the act of teaching does not lose sight of the

paradoxes that give it meaning.292

We need to keep our hopes in check, appreciating the authentic ways of engaging one

another and ourselves when these moments do happen. Hearkening back to the preface of

this dissertation and my tale of the teenager writing angrily about the wizdumb of her

teachers and administrators, we might recognize that when a teen makes a magazine during

school it is an opportunity. Rather than mark either the instrumentality or impediment to

instrumentality that this zine represents with respect to graduation from high school, we

could delve into its content as a group. The goal should not be to diminish these kinds of

291. I am using the term haeecity on my own accord. Rancière does not use the

term.

292. Rancière, “On Ignorant Schoolmasters,” 15-16.

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disruptions per se, but to understand their cause, if possible, and to respond in a way that

celebrates the process and allows for assertions of creativity that act to change the

curriculum. Having outlined some of the background terms involved in the conceptual

view of possibility in Rancière and CPI, I will now move on to inquiring into the value of

possibility writ large, as well as into the potential issue of valuing it in the wrong way.

Possibility and Expectations of the Other

Rancière and CPI, at least in the sense presented by Kennedy, lead us toward

making a space where sporadic disruptions and novel or renewed concepts emerge within a

community. As I have tried to show, granting certain values of schooling and philosophy,

the best technique for acknowledging power and welcoming emergent properties within

the intentional community of any school, traditional or new, is CPI. Referring to Deleuze

and Guattari, Storme, and Vlieghe argue that “Philosophy is exactly that practice that

makes the experience of the new possible through the creation of concepts.”293 For Storme

and Vlieghe, this creation of concepts is feasible only when we are, as they put it in

Agamben’s terminology, neotenic children.294 This term is meant to serve as a contrast to

the notion of mastery, knowledge, and essentially all that constitutes the police order for

Rancière. As Kennedy and Kohan put it, schools can have a role in:

293. Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experience of Childhood and the Learning

Society,” 24.

294. Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experience of Childhood and the Learning

Society,” 22.

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emancipatory futurity, a role based on the ongoing historical reconstruction of the

adult-child relation as, on one important level, a relation of equals, driven by an

awareness of the human dimension of natality, and full of a creative, potentially

transformative tension.295

This tendency in CPI literature to focus on natality should be of no surprise given that CPI

is premised on honoring children and their perspective.296 Possibility can easily be seen as

a characterizing element of youth. However, there is a fine line between respecting

possibility and expecting products, change, and outcomes as a result of this possibility.

Indeterminacy is a major part of the value of CPI, and also of the value of

philosophical practice implicit in Rancière’s oevre. Given this language of possibility, one

might worry that having any coherent conception of philosophy would be foreclosing on

possibility too much.297 Additionally, it may seem that excessively endorsing possibility

for its own sake amounts to relativism, wherein everything (from logical statements to

moral norms) is equally possible and plausible. However, what I argue is the most

important concern from a Rancièrean perspective is the need to recognize possibility for

what it is: not formed, and thus not measurable.

295. David Kennedy and Walter Kohan, “Gert biesta and philosophical work with

children,” childhood & philosophy, rio de janeiro 13, no. 28 (2017): 409-414, 412.

296. Kennedy further elaborates on the adult-child relation in ideal, dialogic

schools that would honor emergence. See David Kennedy, “Neoteny, Dialogic Education,

and an Emergent Psychoculture: Notes on Theory and Practice.” Journal of Philosophy of

Education 48, 1 (2014): 100-117.

297. Sevket Benhur Oral, “Can Deweyan Pragmatist Aesthetics Provide a Robust

Framework for the Philosophy for Children Programme?” Studies in Philosophy and

Education 32 (2013): 375; Philip Cam. “Fact, value and philosophy education.” Journal of

Philosophy in Schools 1, no. 1 (2014): 65-66.

140

It is acknowledged in CPI literature that any proposed ways to support

emancipation within schools cannot be overly prescriptive. For example, Lewis’

suggestion that laughter can be disruptive and thus political within a classroom is a

suggestion, but not one that we can force. Bursts of laughter, as with emancipatory acts

writ large, are not genuine when scripted. Comedy and emancipation occur in unexpected

ways.298 We ought to treat the potential emancipation in school as merely possible – not

guaranteed, not expected, not planned. Yet even if we prize schools as being uniquely safe

spaces for this kind of unregulated possibility, as mentioned in the previous section, there

is a danger that we are making schools out to be too pure, and a danger that we are making

this possibility into something that we are expecting, that we are wanting to measure,

represent, understand.

Ultimately this possibility-focused philosophy ought to maintain an orientation

toward something that is out of our control yet that we should live in a kind of accordance

with, be it by understanding our place in relation to it or by cultivating respect for it. For

Rancière there is a will that we all have, a truth underlying our wills, and a muddled

divergence that manifests when we subjectivize and speak. We thus create and recreate

difference all the time, and none of it is fixed or essential. If the Other is not essentialized,

this is good. Rancière wants us to play around with this, to use this arbitrariness of essence

and function to stake claims when necessary. The latter would seem to be an ethical

298. Lewis, Aesthetics of Education, 121-133.

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imperative, grounded in there being something at stake that is desiring of respect or

advocacy. But what grounds it?

The very structure that makes possibility immanent is the feature that guards

against relativism or even nihilism: the equality of participants. This equality – not

quantified but assumed – is a critical feature for CPI and Rancière.299 Within both CPI

(specifically Kennedy) and Rancière there is this assumption of respect for otherness, for

the unknown, the possible, the ineffable, for veracity and for the thou.300 Part of our

experience – perhaps all of our material experience – cannot capture truth, cannot represent

subjective experience. In the same way that Kennedy proposes alterity as the ground of

learning itself, so also do Storme and Vlieghe suggest that education happens in lieu of the

desire to be competent, to master the world.301 Although Rancière does not use the term

alterity, I find an analogous notion in his description of his principle of veracity. According

to this principle, truth is something with which we each have our own unique relationship,

299. For further consideration of equality within a CPI, see “Does Philosophy Fit in

Caxias? A Latin American Project,” in Philosophy in Schools, 88-89 (Kohan indeed

references Rancière in this passage).

300. For Kennedy on the way in which egalitarian dialogue in school can respect

“the other as a singularity” see David Kennedy, “An Archetypal Phenomenology of

Skholé.” Educational Theory 67, 3 (December 2017): 273-290.

301. Storme and Vlieghe, “The Experience of Childhood and the Learning

Society,” 17.

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and any attempts to explain this truth are inevitably fruitless.302 Rancière writes, “what,

brings people together, what unites them, is nonaggregation.”303

While there are commonalities, it is important to recognize what Rancière brings to

the table among the CPI advocates who praise possibility. Jasinki and Lewis argue that CPI

could do better at highlighting emergence, ambiguity, and immeasurability as the value of

CPI. Language itself, they contend, is what triggers emergence, for it is the act of

“babbling” or not being understood through language that creates novelty and freedom.304

On my reading, Rancière represents more of a Rousseauian position wherein it is society

itself that entails this friction or incommensurability – not language. In this way, Rancière

preserves a deep respect for ontological otherness – other wills – rather than a prioritization

of freedom for its own sake. We cannot be free of the Other. Whether it is the burden of

society, the problematic philosopher king, the oppressive school district, it is there. The

unknown or the Other can be seen as a good, perhaps with moral or ethical implications,

and certainly is educative: our freedom comes in choosing how to respond to this Other,

and indeed, we can choose to learn from all others and not just authorities.305 In this way,

302. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 57-60.

303. Rancière, The Ignorant Schoolmaster, 58.

304. Babbling is defined as “the margin of voice and speech, experience and

language.” Igor Jasinski and Tyson Lewis, “Community of Infancy: Suspending the

Sovereignty of the Teacher’s Voice,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 15, no. 4

(2016): 551.

305. Kennedy certainly works with Buber, but I am taking liberty in bringing such

notions of the other and ethical imperatives into conversation with Rancière. Samir Haddad

considers how shared learning can occur in a classroom characterized by universal

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Rancière is not primarily focused on possibility and what kinds of novelty can emerge. Nor

is he primarily concerned with amelioration of society. He calls on us to accept the kind of

structures inherent in society, to accept their inevitabilities, and to recognize what kind of

fundamentally egalitarian principles are at their root. This is a call for us each to challenge

our fundamental assumptions about the Other amidst any and all pedagogical

implementations, especially CPI.

Conclusion

If one endorses Rancière’s critiques of schooling and philosophy, it may be

difficult to imagine his ideal, dissensual practice of philosophy ever being authentically

implemented in schools. If one recognizes that CPI fits well with Rancière’s critiques and

norms, then CPI in existing schools or informing the creation of new schools seems to be

the most promising way of practicing philosophy in society. In this chapter I have

reviewed some reasons for using use CPI to inform the creation of entirely new schools, as

well as some reasons we ought to introduce the practice in existing schools. I have also

covered some of the drawbacks of each of these endeavors. Despite the inherently

imperfect – given the context of schooling itself – execution of CPI, its implementation in

existing schools can challenge the way traditional schooling maintains inequality through

stultification, the assumption of objective truth that requires explanation, and the

promotion of progress via the police order. If used to inform the design of entirely new

teaching in Samir Haddad. “Shared Learning and The Ignorant Schoolmaster,” Philosophy

of Education, 2015, 175-182.

144

schools, despite the fact that schools will always entail problems, CPI offers a utopic

model for what schools could be, insofar as it is founded on an assumption of equality of

intelligence, an acknowledgement of the separation between language and truth, and the

values of egalitarianism, assertion, and creativity.

The title of this dissertation refers to the possibility of philosophy in schools in

order to provoke consideration as to why philosophy might not be possible. The formal

structure of CPI can be set up in different kinds of schools, but the philosophy that might

transpire will always be limited given the convention of school itself. Truly emergent,

democratic, ‘childlike’ moments break through at random – not at the command of

teachers or administrators. Rancière urges us to see that philosophy can happen anywhere,

and that it cannot be premeditated or measured. A sustainable whole-school approach, I

argue, would be better so that there is no economic, material need to acquire various skills

in order to be able to survive once outside the school community. However, even a more

radical, self-sufficient school would not rid itself of the problems Rancière points out,

given the limitations of social life in general.

Conditions can be set up to be more hospitable to emancipatory moments, more

nurturing to its calls, but one must always be vigilant of one’s assumptions. There will

never be a perfect solution for society, because there is always what Rancière refers to as a

miscount: there is always a disparity between our felt, lived truth, and our socially-

dependent language, our social roles, and society in general.306 Schools are social, and in

306. “Politics arises from a count of community “parts,” which is always a false

count, a double count, or a miscount.” Rancière, Disagreement, 6.

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some ways, philosophy happens in spite of them. CPI advocates would argue that

philosophy is certainly possible in schools, particularly when it is viewed as a social

project. Thus, one can learn from both Rancière and CPI that philosophy is possible in

schools, that philosophy can, should, and certainly will happen in spite of schools. While I

have argued that CPI is a preferable practice, the individual practitioner and the

assumptions he or she makes have just as much to do with the possibility of philosophy

transpiring in a space as do any pedagogies or social structures.

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CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

I came to this project already believing that philosophy in any way, shape, or form

would be a good thing in schools, given my own experience as a U.S. public high school

student. Ultimately, the project is meant to explore and problematize this goal in order to

either strengthen the arguments behind it or abandon it. The intent is to think through how

I can truly help students in the way that I wish I had been helped. Is community of

philosophical inquiry (CPI) the way to do this? Can one hold to the criticisms of schooling

and philosophy as described in Chapters Two and Three and use CPI in new or existing

schools without contradicting oneself? In this concluding chapter I reflect on this potential

hypocrisy a bit more, but first I share about a recent conversation I had, to provide an

example of why I believe this has been a valuable project. I offer some recommendations

as to where this research could go next, as well as a reflection on the process of writing the

dissertation itself, before summarizing the conclusions I have drawn from this project.

Not long ago, at a university function for work, I met an undergraduate who plans

to be both a teacher and a counselor, and who currently works with students of parents who

are incarcerated. Seated at a table with this student and a college provost, I was prompted

to describe my dissertation research. After hearing my elevator pitch, the student asked me

how I defined philosophy. I offered my definition and her reply was “doesn’t that already

happen around the kitchen table?” The provost, also an Ethnic Studies professor and

147

former high school teacher, replied that it is ironic that Rancière critiques philosophers in

this way, given that French philosophers are some of the most elite and powerful within

French academia. Ultimately, the remarks by my two interlocutors indicated that the effort

to bring philosophy into schools does indeed appear as elitist insofar as it assumes that

people are not already philosophizing. Further, it would seem that there is some self-

contradiction involved in using academic philosophers in order to eventually argue that

philosophy can take place outside the academy.

Rancière warns that when philosophers try to ‘do good’ as philosophers, this is

problematic. He boldly professes, “philosophy does not come to anyone’s rescue and no

one asks it to.”307 If the intent is to be egalitarian, to allow for student assertions to impact

practice, and to make space for creativity, any conception of philosophy being promoted

must incorporate these values, and the method of implementation must not violate them.

There is still a very real need to pinpoint the ways in which CPI challenges the problems

inherent in traditional schooling and traditional philosophy. Granted, I did not get to fully

defend this view, or to explain CPI to the student or the provost, but their responses can be

seen as examples of how those interested in issues of social justice in education might react

initially to the idea of bringing philosophy into schools. Moreover, there is a need to stay

humble regarding the inclination to try to ‘rescue people’ with philosophy – even if the

inclination comes from ones own experience of wanting to be rescued in this way.

307. Ranciere, Disagreement, ix.

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As already indicated in the preface, my interest in this general topic began when I

was in high school, though it has taken many years for it to become more defined,

informed by life experience and exposure to new ideas. I arrived at the academic discipline

of philosophy after already having committed to making public schools better places,

motivated by my own disappointment in school and my aspiration to contribute to social

equity. I was committed to bringing philosophy to high schools prior to my reading of

Rancière, yet his criticism of philosophy gave me pause. It was not difficult for me to

decide I wanted to write on Rancière, and I had hoped even when applying to my doctoral

program that I would be able to integrate my passion for philosophy in schools into my

dissertation research.

The dissertation process itself proved to be an extremely challenging undertaking.

More than anything else, I have learned the meaning of both resilience and humility. My

very early proposal outlines, which I drafted in 2015, were narrowed down over time until

my topic was more manageable. Even in my final revisions of the dissertation I have had to

become more focused, zeroing in on what I initially thought was too small a contribution. I

went down paths of argumentation that I had to abandon, leaving off entire chapters that I

thought at one point would figure into the thesis. At one time I was intending to look more

broadly at the notion of equality in education by discussing Black Lives Matter and CPI as

two case studies on Rancièrian equality. At another I was going to challenge Rancière’s

reading of Plato, focusing on the notions of sophrosune and ananke. At yet another, I

intended to explore the connection between Rancière, CPI, and philosophical anarchism.

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The topic needed to be narrowed, and I have been humbled by the challenge involved in

sufficiently addressing even a fraction of what I had originally intended to address.

I am not yet sure what to make of the entire process, but I believe I will need a

period of recovery before I can consider writing anything else within academia. Further, I

am much less confident about how much integrity one can preserve while trying to argue

for bringing philosophy to schools. In the past two years, since defending my proposal, I

have held a full-time job and several online adjunct teaching jobs while also somehow

writing and editing this dissertation. Perhaps because it has been such a struggle, perhaps

because I have been experiencing “senioritus,” perhaps because the feeling was there,

dormant, all along, I have experienced feelings of entitlement. I have felt irritated by

undergraduates who did not seem to respect my experience or the hard work I was putting

into my course offerings. I have had feelings of anger at the prospect of having to continue

to work very hard if I want to become a faculty member – reflecting the hidden assumption

that the degree itself entitles me to any job I want. In short, I have had feelings that I did

not expect I would have, feelings that are in direct contrast with the values that I prize in

this project, and the values that initially drove me to pursue graduate degrees. Surely these

feelings will diminish, but I surely hope that I can authentically use my doctorate to live

the values described in this dissertation. Reflecting on the process, what I can say

definitively is that the wizdumb I was preoccupied with in high school is still very much a

concern of mine.

While I may not be engaging in this research myself, there are a few paths one

might journey down if inspired to continue this inquiry. More work can be done on the

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notion of possibility in Rancière, particularly to bolster a Rancièrian response to CPI

advocates who believe possibility itself should be nurtured within schools. It would also be

interesting to further explore the way in which philosophy is conceived within the

movement to bring philosophy to U.S. K-12 schools. It would also be interesting to

compare and contrast Rancière’s critique of democracy with arguments regarding the

democratic sensibilities that CPI may nurture. Furthermore, there is a subtext to this entire

project that I did not get to address, which is that philosophy within academia is a very

white, predominately male discipline. This fact should also be addressed before objectively

ascertaining whether there are problems with bringing philosophy into schools. In other

words, it is understandable that philosophy brought to schools comes across as a

colonizing gesture. 308 Diversifying philosophy, not just with respect to who moves through

the ranks of academic philosophy but also in who we read as philosophers, is an important

endeavor if we want to take the underlying focus on equality seriously within Rancière and

CPI studies.

As I have shown, there are commonalities between CPI and Rancière. It would

seem that we are left with the idea that CPI might be a good idea and provide for

emancipatory moments, but that these moments will still always be in the context of

308. Though I cited this previously, it is worth mentioning again that there is work

being done in the area of problematizing the pervasive whiteness found in U.S. CPI

literature. For example, see Darren Chetty, “The Elephant in the Room: Picturebooks,

Philosophy for Children and Racism.” childhood & philosophy 10, no. 19 (2014): 11-31. A

similar critique also comes up in Gregory, Maughn Rollins. “Philosophy for Children and

its Critics.” In Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects, 30-51.

Edited by Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy. Walden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 42.

151

imperfect social institutions (e.g. schools). The way CPI gets justified and introduced is

through arguments that it makes more democratic citizens, produces better results, helps

students progress, and so on. None of these reasons that are used to justify the practice of

CPI fully encapsulate what is good about it. Is CPI still worth doing in U.S. K-12 schools,

then? Should Rancière inform CPI?

It is my view that both Rancière’s critique and his positive conception of

philosophy can be useful in helping us to think about our own use of the term, particularly

when advocating for its practice within schools. Rancière brings to light the political

commitments entailed by our characterization of the narrow method and practice of

philosophy. While one might say that everything reflects our political commitments, it

appears to me that the focus on philosophy brings to the surface the genuine question as to

whether philosophy entails a value-neutral set of skills. Rancière has said of his works that

they can be useful in prompting one to reexamine “philosophy’s political role,” wherein

philosophy can be seen as an act of real politics that runs contrary to, or in spite of, the

police order.309 Advocating for philosophy in schools, if we heed Rancière’s critique of

philosophy, ought to entail a consideration of whether we are endorsing or trying to

challenge the police order. How well are we, or can we, philosophize in the Rancièrian

fashion while in schools? What does Rancière’s critique really do for us if we are still

trying to make schools better despite their limitations?

309. Rancière, On the Shores of Politics, 4.

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As I have argued, CPI can be seen as a response to the problematic elitism,

obsession with method, and objective view of truth found in traditional philosophy.

Moreover, in the context of schooling, I have argued that the intention of using CPI

following Rancière’s critiques is to avoid inequality and stultification, and to challenge the

police order, in part by rejecting the objective picture of truth, the role of explanation on

the part of educators and administrators, and the obsession with progress. Whether we are

putting CPI into practice in new or existing schools, we can be mindful of the underlying

critiques and values motivating our work.

Critics of traditional philosophy may indeed feel that an appropriate alternative

practice ought to be egalitarian rather than elitist, ought to value assertion rather than

reified methods, and ought to prize creativity or sitelessness rather than an objective notion

of truth. For those who favor this alternative model of philosophy, there may be concern

that this simply is not possible in these traditional schools. What I have argued is that this

practice of philosophy is largely possible in existing and new schools if one adopts CPI.

The question of whether this favored, alternative form of philosophy called CPI is possible

in schools should thus be seen as a challenge. As I have shown, possibility is sometimes

glorified as a feature we want to preserve in schools, as a kind of hope for change and

novelty. Rancière helps us to recognize that ultimately, philosophy is always possible – in

schools and out – and it is something that we cannot control, force, or measure. Possibility

is not measurable, but more of an assumption. We can implement CPI in order model

certain values that philosophy naturally entails, just as we can implement our own

153

appreciation for possibility – for the unknown, uncontrollable Other that may not need our

rescuing.

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